The Twilight Dragon & Other Tales of Annwn: Preludes to The Everwinter Wraith (The Annwn Cycle)

by Shawn Speakman

  It made sense.

  Long moments passed.

  “Not that I am accepting—because there will come a time when my death is more desirable than a job I am to take—but what am I to steal?”

  Lady Audeph Klestmark smiled. Both women knew she had won her thief.

  “The Grimoires of the rebel Druids, Lleidr Corryn Rosenwyn Whyte.”

  #

  Lost in thought, Rosenwyn ignored the Everwinter chill.

  She rode Wennyl eastward out of Mur Castell, cloaked in a black as dark as the Rhedewyr she sat upon. Wennyl had been the price of one of her first heists, a miraculous animal that had become her best friend, strong in ways normal horses were not, aware of her every mood and circumstance. Rhedewyr were difficult for humans to come by; if one lost its first rider to death, the horse usually died from sorrow. Some did not though. Rosenwyn and Wennyl had bonded upon meeting and they had been together ever since. The fey mount had carried her over much of Annwn, seen her through the most difficult thefts, and now the stallion moved through the snows toward the ruins of Saith yn Col, the elements barely a hindrance.

  As Mur Castell faded behind her, she embraced the solitude of the peaceful road, senses always attuned to possible danger.

  And thought about Lady Klestmark’s offer.

  Rosenwyn had no idea how the woman had come by the Lleidr Corryn. The token possessed great power to call upon one of three master thieves. Like the thieves, there were only three tokens, making their services exceedingly rare.

  From her earliest memories, Rosenwyn had been a thief. At that time, she did not understand the moral implications of such a life. Few four year olds needed to. She had learned them from the hardest of lives, to survive the river city streets of Velen Rhyd, to eat when others would starve. She rarely thought about her painful childhood—one spent stealing while evading the Red Crosses even as she outwitted older bullies and those who would try to exploit her abilities. But being summoned by the Lleidr Corryn token brought those memories to the fore, like angry slivers buried deep beneath her skin. Velen Rhyd was a threadbare city, barely able to sustain even its poor and, having lost her parents and older siblings to fire, she alone had survived. Even alone, Rosenwyn hid the secret of her magic despite the fearful whispers on the streets. Halfbreed. Fey.

  More witch than little girl.

  No one back then knew her real secret. But children sensed truth without actually witnessing it. There was a reason she only ventured out at night. There was a reason she kept her skin covered. Her family had known. The night had replaced the family she had lost, become her first friend, camouflaging her unpredictable magic.

  As she grew so did her thieving abilities, not because of the blood that flowed through her veins but because stealing ensured survival.

  It did not take long for her to come to the attention of Vrace Erryn. Young but already accomplished, he had trained Rosenwyn, shaping her like a master artist does a sculpture. Together, they had stolen from the capital of Caer Llion. Together, they had cheated Magwyn Mog within his spell-protected wizard warren. Together, they had taken a rare dragon egg from Tal Ebolyon.

  And together they had become Lleidr Corryn.

  Until the day Vrace broke her heart. And she vanished from the game, beginning a new life as a wandering musician.

  As far as she knew, Vrace and the older Rol Macleod remained in their trade. She had thought herself safe, far enough removed from that former life to escape notice from everyone, including the death the two men owed her for breaking the Lleidr Corryn vow.

  Lady Audeph Klestmark had proven that thought wrong.

  And if she could find her, who else could?

  Wennyl snorted, a ghost plume dying on the air.

  “I know, boy.” Rosenwyn patted the stallion’s great neck, her annoyance matching his. “We will disappear again soon. I promise.”

  The path continued, the Everwinter a constant companion. The snow had stopped. No stars appeared, leaving Rosenwyn thankful. They possessed a light, no matter how faint, that brought the magic in her blood to life. Even though all parts of her skin were covered—including her eyes by darkglass goggles and a veil over her mouth—she had to be vigilant. It was a danger she lived with every day.

  To be free of that curse would be worth one more theft. If she survived.

  As midnight came and went, the two companions came to a stone marker set along the road where another, smaller path intersected it, the marker’s worn face covered in ice and snow.

  Rosenwyn dismounted. She struck a match into life.

  She could just make out the age-worn words chiseled on the stone sign.

  Caer Dathal

  Rosenwyn grunted. That castle keep no longer existed. At least not in this part of the world. It had become Saith yn Col, home to one lone stubborn piece of rock.

  “Easy part over,” she said sarcastically.

  Wennyl snorted and she remounted. They left the road for the smaller path, the forest closing in on them as if to strangle their passage. Rosenwyn ignored the feeling; unlike many thieves, she was not superstitious. The great oaks that suffocated the trail grew wilder the deeper they traveled, until frozen limbs threatened to unseat her. She dismounted then, sending her senses into the Everwinter around her, senses honed to feel danger no matter its quarter. Nothing presented itself; no sound betrayed otherwise. With Wennyl quietly behind, Rosenwyn crossed over icy streams, the trail shrinking as it winded over small hills, until the ground flattened and the great oaks began to thin, the musician become thief-once-again finally viewing beyond her immediate vicinity.

  She almost could not comprehend what she saw. Saith yn Col laid before her, the remnants of Caer Dathal of Old spreading into the distance. She gauged the situation from the forest. It did not look promising. The ruins were a black mess, the height of dead stone heaving out of the world making it difficult to measure the breadth of it all. She could imagine Caer Dathal then, the grand towers and buildings that had once filled the sky, the bustling, lively community, and pennants flying in the wind—all brought low by a battle waged centuries earlier. It spoke to the might of the Unseelie Court and the dragons of Tal Ebolyon. Many people had died, their remains crushed and forgotten beneath the ruins. Caer Dathal of Old was no longer a place of learning; it had become a graveyard of stone and buried bone, a place where death had taken up ancient residence.

  Only one tower remained, once probably the shortest. It had outlived its brethren, tall compared to the thief, its merlons ripped free but otherwise intact.

  Rosenwyn took a deep breath, cursing Lady Klestmark and her desires. She moved Wennyl back into the forest, out of sight for anyone—or any gargoyle—that did not know of the fey horse’s presence.

  “Wish me speed and silence, old friend.”

  Wennyl stared back at her, his awareness mixed with fire.

  She rubbed his nose, already looking back toward Saith yn Col. With footfalls light upon the frozen snow, she moved with soundless purpose. The last hours of night were upon her world, a clock ticking against her magical ailment, and while she shielded herself from the light it would not do well to linger, being exposed to the very thing that could alarm the gargoyle if her clothing and goggles failed. She strode the perimeter, not venturing into the ruins. Yet. If Audeph Klestmark was to be believed, gargoyles were perceptive creatures and the thief’s continued anonymity would serve her best.

  She crept into Saith yn Col as silent as a ghost, ferreting its secrets. It had been many years since her last theft, but she found her skills right where she had left them, all too eager to be used.

  She swallowed her annoyance.

  The past remained, no matter her attempts to discard it.

  Finishing her initial appraisal of Saith yn Col, Rosenwyn entered the short tower by grappling to its exposed top and dropping inside on cat’s feet. But the structure had long been a dead shell, possessing nothing of interest. No treasure trove. And thankfully no grotesque.
She then silently scaled the mounds of broken walls and buildings, searching outward from the center of Caer Dathal of Old in concentric circles, looking for any entrances into the rubble. That too yielded no results. She cursed silently. Saith yn Col was as unlike any situation she had entered. In that past, having accepted a job, she had always prepared, learning all she could. Surprises could get one killed all too easily and knowledge could be the key to living another day. But the destruction here wrought centuries earlier had left Caer Dathal of Old a formidable riddle, with none of the usual entrances and exits of her previous thieving forays.

  Hating to admit defeat and her chance at a normal life, she leaned against a broken wall of the inner keep, considering her lack of options.

  That’s when her instincts tingled.

  A lesser thief might have ignored them. Rosenwyn cocked her head, listening to an odd, deadness on the air. Trusting those instincts, she shrunk down and moved to the end of the wall, peering around it.

  Another wall—once part of the keep—met it, and where they intersected a hidden maw of blackness waited, with steps vanishing into the bowels of Saith yn Col.

  Massive footprints pressed into the snow around the opening, unlike any Rosenwyn had ever seen. Proof of the Nix.

  And this was most likely the only entrance—and therefore the only exit.

  Thieves abhorred such things.

  Heart quickened, Rosenwyn retreated to crouch behind stones atop the ruins a short distance away, her eyes never leaving the wide hole leading to some unknown subterranean depth. Long moments passed. They became longer. Rosenwyn still did not move, thinking. The sky to the east began to lighten as a new snow fell. The day would soon be upon her. She fought the cold that threatened without as her thoughts turned icy within. Saith yn Col was an impossible task, she realized with real regret. She knew many a foolhardy thief, but few who would risk such a passage as that yawning gap. She simply did not possess enough information to overcome the terrible odds. Undoubtedly, the Nix waited for her below. A creature created to protect, it would have installed any number of physical or magical traps to protect Caer Dathal of Old.

  Worse, the gargoyle could be waiting, right where true darkness first blinds.

  Able to end her life easily.

  No matter how much it galled the Lleidr Corryn, the situation was beyond her.

  “Enough of this,” she whispered, not happy having to convince herself of the truth. She was no coward but it had to be more equal than this.

  She would return to Audeph Klestmark. This job was no job.

  It was suicide.

  That is when she saw the glowing eyes.

  Rosenwyn almost thought it a trick of her imagination. In the feeble illumination of the night, even her eyes—eyes that had become as strong as any cat’s—could not decipher what stared at her. The orbs looked like tiny lamps that floated in the dark, unblinking and unwavering.

  “I see you are aware of me, Woman of Many Talents,” the darkness rumbled from within the entrance, the voice deep like stone grinding against stone.

  Rosenwyn froze, torn between flight and intrigue.

  “Standing still will not help you disappear,” the darkness growled.

  “I did not think it would.”

  “Good. Now go. These ruins are no longer for the living.”

  Rosenwyn took a deep breath, bolstering her resolve. “Who do I have the pleasure of conversing?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice free of fear.

  “I was wrong, in part. A well-spoken Woman of Many Talents,” the voice digressed. It carried authority and something else. Curiosity? “An oddity in these broken wilds, that much I know.” The Nix paused. “Tell me, Woman of Many Talents, should you not leave? This is where our conversation parts.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  The eyes shifted in their tunnel. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”

  “I was not prepared to meet a poet.”

  “It is not my own. Yet I hold it close.” The eyes wavered as if leaving. “Go. There are warmer climes than these stones.” She did not move, willing the other to notice. “Do you woo death?” the Nix grated finally.

  There it was. The threat.

  At least the gargoyle had not left.

  “I will not leave,” Rosenwyn said. “Not until you step free of your home and truly reveal yourself. I have come a long way for that very thing.”

  The Nix grunted. “Unlike you, I was created with patience.”

  The eyes vanished. Rosenwyn waited but they did not return. She wagered the Nix would not be gone long. He would reappear. Eventually. Curiosity ruled the creature. She had sensed it with every lingering sentence the gargoyle had spoken.

  Rosenwyn slowed her adrenaline at the meeting and left her perch upon ruined stone, navigating back toward the forest. She needed to think. She had not expected to be confronted with the Nix so quickly—especially a creature of such intelligence. It changed her approach in acquiring the grimoires. Carefully exiting the ruins, she found Wennyl first, gathering a pack containing her supplies and a heavy blanket that would help keep the chill at bay while she built a fire. As the sky lightened in the east toward dawn, she did a quick visual of herself, ensuring no skin had become exposed during the night, and then sparked a small fire to life, its warmth chasing the cold that had followed her from Mur Castell.

  The Nix did not appear throughout the day. It did not bother Rosenwyn. Thieves also possessed great patience. The gargoyle would emerge again during the day.

  If he did not, she would be ready.

  When night began to fall on Saith yn Col and the Nix still had not showed, she pulled free her crwth and its bow from their case.

  And closing her eyes, she began to play.

  Rosenwyn chose The Fall of Tember Tu, the ballad describing the destruction of a mythical castle, beautiful quartz spires banded in silver brought low by the forces of dark midnight spawn. She poured all of her emotion into the epic song, building the tragedy of the city as well as the sorrow of two young lovers separated when the battle began. The Lleidr Corryn left her past behind then, a musician once more, letting her crwth and voice weave together in ways that had reduced the hardest men to tears. She bled her craft, the music infiltrating Saith yn Col. Rosenwyn felt the ghosts who now inhabited the ruins, and it made her sad that such grandeur could die in the world.

  When the last note faded altogether, Rosenwyn took a deep breath and opened her eyes to the dying day.

  “You are a mistress possessed of beautifully haunting music.”

  Suspecting her actions would bring the gargoyle, Rosenwyn feigned surprise and located him. The Nix sat regally tall on massive haunches where the forest met Saith yn Col, a stone dragon three times her height made from dark gray stone laced with tiny veins of silver. But unlike the dragons she had periodically seen flying in the skies over Annwn all of her life, the Nix appeared crippled, his long tail, wings on his back, and left arm shattered, broken stone. The eyes burned bright though; no weakness stared at her. Power radiated from the ancient guardian. It remained a force to be reckoned.

  A small silver shield containing a single oak acorn winked from his left breast, reflecting the orange and yellow light of the fire.

  “Thank you,” she said simply.

  The Nix looked into the branches of the frozen oaks, eyes lost to the past. “The Fall of Tember Tu had long been one my favorite songs. Poignant. Sorrowful. The cost of human loving in a world fractured by hatred.” The gargoyle frowned. “The song took a new meaning when the stones of my home began killing those I was formed to protect. I have not heard it sung for centuries—and not as well sung. It is beautiful still but tainted with memory.”

  “I am sorry,” Rosenwyn said. “I did not mean to cause you pain.”

  “The instrument you hold is also beautiful,” the Nix rumbled, eyeing the crwth with interest. “I have seen its kind and yet hav
e not.”

  “I have made modifications,” she said. “Yes.”

  “You have added frets.”

  “Frets?” she asked, confused.

  “Yes. Poet John Keats speaks of fret, I believe,” the Nix said. “Fret is a word that came into existence in the Misty Isles, the world beyond this one. There are many such newly wrought words, apparently.” The Nix thought on it. “The Heliwr of a century past brought me a book from his world, a book filled with poetry and song. The word ‘fret’ has two meanings though.” The Nix gazed over the modified crwth. “I believe those raised areas along the neck of your instrument are what he spoke of. What we hear in the past becomes pertinent again in the present. This is one such moment.”

  Rosenwyn had made some changes to the design, true. As far as she knew, her crwth was one of a kind.

  She found that she liked the Nix.

  “I would like to hear you play again,” the grotesque said. “It has been many centuries since I have heard music, longer from one so talented.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But first to serious matters,” the Nix said. “Why are you here?”

  The stone creature’s sharp gaze daggered into her. Rosenwyn found it difficult to look away. “I am merely traveling. My grandfather would tell stories of Caer Dathal of Old’s grandeur. The beauty. The prestige. The stories he told had been passed down from his fathers before him. I was hoping to view you as well as see… something… of that famous castle, to know those stories were real. You are more than I could ever have imagined.”

  “Stories have power.” The Nix ignored her platitudes. “And shared stories grow in the telling, especially when those stories are told over centuries. Caer Dathal was beautiful, once. No longer. That beauty has vanished with time,” the Nix said with a hint of anger. “And I am not a mindless beast as some of those stories make me out to be. I do not take kindly to strangers. Men and women and Seelie and Unseelie are all alike—they trespass to dig for imagined treasure or magical artifacts. I trust no one.”