by Janzen, Tara
Dain watched as the sprite stepped from behind a tree and into a patch of watery moonlight. Like Rhuddlan, he’d known ’twas her. He’d felt her distant presence on the march from Wydehaw and determined that she was following them. She had become a shadow he could not lose.
Ignoring the girl once she was fully present, Rhuddlan returned his attention to Dain. “Moira and the others are not too far behind, and probably Madron also, but Llynya chose to travel alone, against my orders as she does most everything.”
“Why are the women coming?”
“Even more than Deri, this is a Quicken-tree place. They come to fight.” Rhuddlan gestured to the sprite. “You will go over the wall with Dain and Morgan. See to it that neither are hurt.”
“Aye,” Llynya said, though she failed to meet his gaze.
Morgan guffawed, clearly amused.
Dain was not. “She stays with you, Rhuddlan, and Morgan. She has watched my back for too long and in places where I would have preferred to have had my privacy.” He directed the last at Llynya, whose only sign of understanding was to lower her head a little more and drag the toe of her boot through the mud.
“Aye, the girl stays,” Morgan concurred with Dain, “but you’re not leaving without me. So do not waste your effort in trying.”
“Nor will you leave without Llynya,” Rhuddlan said. “She will help you find the entrance to the southwest passage. I know not what shape it may have taken since the building of Balor over the ruins of Carn Merioneth. There are many false leads in the tunnels and caves. Llynya will guide you through them. Alone, you’ll waste precious time and increase the danger to yourself and Ceridwen.”
Dain gave the man a questioning look. “Like Madron, you worry much over the maid’s safety.”
“And yours,” Rhuddlan admitted, surprising him.
“To what end?” he asked.
“From you, the promised hour of magic. From Ceridwen, her heritage. Both of you must open a long-closed door, the seal on a weir gate in the deep tunnels, the one trapping the pryf in their dark maze.”
“They are not trapped, Rhuddlan. They came up the river.” Dain had felt them, heard them.
“Their cry will echo for a hundred leagues beneath the ground and wash up against you like a caress,” Rhuddlan said. “They are nonetheless trapped and must be freed.”
’Twas not so much to ask for what Rhuddlan had given him, Dain thought. Or was it? He didn’t doubt his ability to open anything. It had proven to be a rare gift he had, but quick as she was, Ceridwen had shown no such talent.
Then again, she had opened the door to the upper chamber of the Hart. Not a difficult task, to be sure, but beyond many he’d known.
“’Tis not as complicated as the Druid Door,” Rhuddlan continued, “but like Nemeton’s it requires a knowing touch. Unlike Nemeton’s, it also requires a woman’s touch. Someone else is trying to break the seal, and we must be the first. Of this there is no doubt. ’Tis why we came so early out of the west. ’Tis why I came north to Balor before Beltaine.”
“And what did you find?” Dain asked.
“Traces of the same evil one who took Ceridwen. His strange scent is all over the caves and in places I thought were safe from intrusion.”
“So ’tis Helebore who causes both our troubles.”
“Helebore and another who is much more elusive,” Rhuddlan said. “Trig found some sign, but not enough to track. Merioneth is a sacred place to the Quicken-tree. I am sworn to protect it and all who dwell there from desecration and destruction.”
“You are so sure I can open this door?”
“Aye. I am sure. With Ceridwen’s help, you will open it and live to tell the tale.”
~ ~ ~
Ceridwen hung from the ropes that held her arms to a wooden cross planted in the wall-walk behind a northside parapet. The rain had finally stopped, though lightning still flickered and flashed through the sky, and thunder could be heard rumbling across the heavens.
Purification was hell, a very cold, dark, and lonely hell. Only two guards were left with her, neither of them Gruffudd. They talked together between the merlons, distant enough that their voices were naught but noise in cadence. Yet the thunder and the guards did not account for all she heard up on the wall. Another sound came from the east, a strange, intermittent wheezing that could be wind, but which her instincts told her was not. Whatever it was, she prayed it came no closer.
Helebore planned on returning quickly. A short purification, he’d said, should be enough to render her fit for his black magic. Enough, she thought, to render her helpless with cold and fear. After the leech had seen her tied, he’d ordered the other guards to his chambers to bring up an iron cauldron to catch her blood. In case the cup should overspill, he’d said.
She squeezed her eyes shut and jerked against the ropes. They did not loosen. Her heart pounded inside her chest, every beat reminding her that Helebore was going to cut it out of her. He’d promised her as much, with a special knife he called an athame, a witch’s blade, after he’d proved her wrong and Caradoc released her fully into his keeping.
Chances were he would prove her wrong. What did she know of dragons, other than what she’d read? She had Madron’s dream, but dreams could not save her. She jerked and pulled again on the ropes.
Damnation was her destiny. Hell, not heaven, would be her eternal home. She could near feel the fiery flames of that cursed place licking at her through the freezing rain. She would face the Devil already half a demon. The unguent was still on her face, marking her as one of Satan’s own. There was no hope, no hope.
She clenched her teeth and tried the ropes yet again. She was damned. There was naught but lightning for her to work with to free herself, and she did not know the way of it. ’Twas her own fault. She’d become so enamored of the other magic Dain had taught her, she’d not asked again for the lightning dance.
Llynya had seen it, had seen him draw fire out of the sky and make it dance to his whim. She would immolate herself, he’d warned, but ’twas a chance she was willing to take, if she could only entice a sliver of the searing heat to escape its bolt and burn through her bonds.
She had no words. Dain was a great believer in speaking words to make good spells. Truthfully, he’d told her that ofttimes the words alone would make the spell without a charm. She had no charm about her either, only the lightning arcing across the night sky and a desperate need.
“Sky fire, sky fire... release your power unto me.” She improvised, pleading with any words she could think of, straining to infuse them with confidence and meaning. “Break a bolt of lightning from... from God’s hands and hurl it down through the darkness that it may—”
The great doors of the keep swung open below her. Her breath caught in her throat. A troop of men filed out, two of them carrying a cauldron on a pole. Behind the two, Helebore walked with his head bowed and covered by his cowl. Wisps of fog wound around them all.
“Sky fire, sky fire, release your power unto me,” she repeated more strongly, tugging at her bonds.
Torchlight flickered over the slow-moving column as they descended the stairs and crossed the bailey toward the north wall. Helebore stopped once and looked up to where she hung from her cross. The candle the leech held threw macabre shadows upon his face, giving him the ghoulish countenance she feared was his truest nature.
“Sky fire, sky fire.” Her voice faltered as he continued to stare, his pale face transfixing her. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God—” Lightning crackled through the darkness, accompanied by a simultaneous crash of thunder. “Aaaah!” The scream was torn from her throat. Pain burned across her wrists and she was free, falling to the stone wall-walk.
For an instant she was suffused with wonder. She’d done it. Then her savior showed himself.
“You,” she gasped at the dirty, sharp-angled face looming over her.
“Snit’s me name,” he said. A small dagger glinted in his hand.
“Snit.”
With a flick of blade and flash of steel, Snit pulled a second knife from his belt and shoved the hilt into her hand. “Do yer best.”
Her best was to get behind the wooden cross and gird herself for the attack. The little man ran forward to do battle with the guards. He was no higher than their waists, and overmatched by seven stone apiece. At the last moment, he rolled himself into a ball and pitched forward against one of the men’s legs. The guard stumbled over him, losing his balance. Snit took quick advantage, jumping back up to his feet and pushing the bigger man over the edge of the wall-walk. The guard’s short cry of surprise ended in the bailey turf.
His demise created instant havoc in Helebore’s line, sending men scurrying. Ceridwen gave them naught but a glance before the other guard was upon her.
He lunged to the right, reaching for her hair, and she cut him with her blade. He swore, a vicious sound, and lunged again, then Snit was on him, slashing away with his knife. The guard roared and shook free, throwing the little man to the wall-walk. Snit was undaunted, and as Ceridwen threw her weight against the guard, the little man reached up with his knife and severed the tendon in the back of the guard’s knee. The man fell with a roar of pain.
“Come,” Snit directed her, taking off at a run.
Ceridwen bent and picked up the guard’s crossbow, cursing the other one for taking his sword with him over the wall. Then she followed Snit to the east, the two of them racing across the ramparts. At a turn in the wall, she came to a sudden, stunned halt. Another cross had been planted in the stone walk, and a man hung upon it. Or what had once been a man. No human ever looked thus. His skin hung in tatters down the length of his naked body. She stumbled back, away from the gross specter of mutilated flesh and the horrifying stench that consumed him. A single burning torch illuminated the rotting face. Empty eye sockets had become a nesting place for maggots. The wheezing she’d heard was no more than air passing through what little was left of a nose. One ear was missing, and in its place was a bloody mat of wiry red hair.
Ragnor.
Her tormentor.
For all that he’d done to her, she was sickened by his fate.
Behind her, she heard the clattering noise of many men spilling out onto the wall. There was no time to falter. With a quick prayer, she stepped forward, her hand tightening on the knife Snit had given her.
“Go with your God,” she murmured, and one neat, deep slice across the side of his neck ended Ragnor’s misery.
She stepped back, away from the spurt of blood, then took off after Snit before he disappeared from sight.
~ ~ ~
Dain eased himself over a crenellation in Balor’s wall and was followed by Morgan, Llynya, and a wave of thick fog rolling up from the sea below. The climb had been treacherous, the rock slick with sea spray and rain. The cliff itself had crumbled beneath his fingers too often for comfort. He might not have made it down again with the weight of another on his back. When he found Ceridwen, he would do as Rhuddlan had said and bring her down through the tower.
The last bolt of lightning had struck close with the storm sweeping inland from the sea. If it did not lift, the weather would lodge up against the mountains, and there would be hell to deal with the whole night long.
They each did a weapon check once they’d made the wall. Full quivers hung across each of their backs, daggers were thrust into belts. Llynya’s bow was shorter than Morgan’s and Dain’s, but Rhuddlan had assured Dain that the sprite was a sure and steady shot and an able arm behind the sword she carried.
Men could be seen swarming over a section of the north wall. The torches there were still burning brightly, untouched by the heavy mist sneaking in from the coast. Nebelmer, it was called, a sea of cloud. Dain looked behind him, and indeed ’twas a sea, white-and-gray waves peaking and churning one against the other, piling higher and obscuring everything in their path. The hazy stuff slipped between the merlons and drifted down to the wall-walk, pooling in milky swirls around their feet. The ocean was naught but sound and a vast emptiness filled with the cloud.
“Much more o’ this, and we’ll be fighting blind,” Morgan said.
“It will not hinder me,” Llynya said. “I can see my way clear no matter how thick it gets.”
“You can see through this?” Morgan sifted his hand through the fog pouring over the wall. His fingers disappeared in the white mist.
“Mayhaps ‘smell’ is the truer word.” She turned her head to the east. “And I smell something horrifyingly awful over there.” She pointed, and Dain followed the direction of her hand.
“Is it Helebore?” he asked.
“Aye. He is there, but I smell worse than the evil one.”
“Stay behind me,” he ordered, “and if needs be, go over the wall. There are arrowslits in each merlon for you to cling to on the outside.”
“Rhuddlan did not send me to be a burr on the castle curtain.”
“Rhuddlan sent you to find our way beneath the pit. Until we reach it, stay behind me.”
The three of them struck out for the north wall, passing no patrols since the men-at-arms were running ahead of them, converging near a northside parapet. By torchlight, Dain could see them milling around the wall-walk and crenellation, as if they searched for something gone astray. The three of them drew closer and the noise of the search could be heard: men shouting, the metallic jingling of mail hauberks, the stomping of feet.
“Cretinous whoresons! I will have the ballocks cut from all of you!” someone screamed above the din. Helebore, by the sibilant, whining sound of it. “One lice-ridden slut outfoxes you to the man and escapes my grasp! Who will give me blood in her place? Who?”
Dain looked to Morgan, and their eyes met above the swirling mist. The dark-haired Welshman grinned.
“She is the damnedest thing to hold on to.” Morgan’s grin broadened.
The relief Dain felt held him in his place. She was free. But where?
“Llynya. Return to Rhuddlan.” He turned to the sprite. “Tell him Ceridwen has escaped and will be looking for a way out of Balor. Have him post scouts.”
“I’m not to leave you.”
“We are all of us here for one reason, to save Ceridwen. Now go, and when you have delivered your message, return to the southwest tower to await Morgan and me.” His tone warned her he would brook no disobedience in this.
She nodded, and as quickly as that was gone the way they’d come.
“What now, Dain?” Morgan asked.
“We search for your cousin from inside the walls. You take the garrison and the lower bailey. I’ll take the keep and the upper bailey. If you find her, rendezvous in the southwest tower. If not, go over the wall and come up through the caves with your men and the Quicken-tree.”
“About the pit,” Morgan said, and Dain wondered if going to the feared place was beyond the Welshman’s ability.
“Aye?”
“It’s a maze in itself. I’ve heard Caradoc runs men through it sometimes and that none has been known to survive. There are traps, dangers besides the wild boars he keeps. If you end up there, keep your wits about you.”
“You have never known me to lack for wits, ab Kynan.” He felt another wave of relief. ’Twasn’t the pit itself worrying Morgan.
“Nor for courage,” the younger man admitted. “But your penchant for self-preservation tends to weaken in the face of another’s need.” He hesitated, lowering his gaze. “’Twasn’t the beatings you took for me that I regret, for in truth, with my leg half open at the time, I was in no shape to take them myself.” His voice grew softer, less sure. “Nor was it the buggery that I worried about so much, though I swear I do not know how you bore—”
“I would not speak of this,” Dain said, his manner harsh to dissuade his friend from his course.
“Nor I, except for the peril we
face,” Morgan said, doggedly continuing. “’Twas the other I never forgave myself for, Dain, what Jalal did to you with the kif and his conjuring arts. I remember one new moon eve near the beginning of our second year in the desert. You and Jalal were sitting around a small gold brazier you’d carried out to the dunes, putting bits of something into the flames and singing words that could have been naught but from the Devil. Demons danced on the sands that night and howled through the camp, and this is what I fear, Dain, that ’tis too soon for you to die. Until you make your peace with God, your soul might still be damned by those darker desert deeds. Deeds that I did naught to stop.”
Dain remembered the night. His mind had been swimming in a sea of wine and smoke, and Jalal had taken him out into the dunes, not to call demons, but to speak to him of soothing things and courtesans; and if they’d sung, no doubt the song had been bawdy rather than diabolical. Mayhaps they’d put a pinch or two of rihadin in the brazier. But Morgan was right about one thing, that night had been a beginning between him and Jalal. From thence forward, the master had no longer come to his tent as a man, but only as a teacher of potions and spells and magic and stars; and by the end of the second year, no more men had come to his tent at all. Jalal had found his truer worth. Another year had seen Dain able to buy his freedom and Morgan’s, for by then he’d learned some things to teach his master.
“’Twas the wind you heard howling through the camp that night,” he said to Morgan, “and as you could not have stopped the wind, no more could you have stopped me from taking my path. You have no fault in all of this, and no debt.”
“And your peace with God?” Morgan asked, clearly not yet willing to concede.
Dain smiled. “It is proving to be hard-won, but I do not plan on dying this night.”
“Then to better your odds, if the chance should come for a boar fight, I ask that you stay behind me.”
Dain clapped him on the shoulder, accepting the note of command in his friend’s voice. “If we meet in the pit, I’ll let you have first go at the beast.”
