The Golden Cage

by J. D. Oswald

‘I order it,’ she said, handing him the keys. ‘Now follow. And lock the door behind you.’

  He said nothing but did as he was told. Beulah could sense his trepidation, but she could also feel his wonder and excitement at this new adventure. It was a mix as potent as any of her father’s sweet Fo Afron wines, and she savoured it as they stepped carefully down the narrow winding staircase.

  Towards the bottom, light began to seep up from below, dull red but more than enough to see by. Beulah let her conjured light extinguish, absorbing the power of it into herself with a little surge of warmth that spread across her whole skin and made her tingle. Instead of the sensation slowly ebbing away, as it would normally, it grew with each step further down.

  ‘My lady, I feel …’

  ‘Powerful? Intoxicated? Aroused? Don’t worry, my love. You will come to no harm in this place.’ She reached out for his hand again, and as their fingers brushed together sparks flew between them. All of a sudden Beulah could see his thoughts as clearly as if they were her own. He was scared, but also awed and a little confused. He had been told about this place, she realized, but only as the sort of barrack-room rumour all novitiates might hear. He had no real idea what it truly was, only that the punishment for entering it was an unpleasant and messy death.

  With a practised thought Beulah wiped away Clun’s fears, assuring him that he had every right to be here. Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she went deeper into his mind.

  He loved her with an unquestioning, unconditional devotion, she realized. With a start, she discovered that he had loved her since first he had seen her, at his father’s wedding. He had never harboured any hope that she would even notice him, but he had dedicated himself to her service. Silently, personally, but with a good deal more conviction than his stepbrother Errol’s drunken proclamation.

  The image of Errol flickered through Clun’s mind, and with it there was a deep sorrow. He believed that the boy had turned traitor, perhaps had always been a traitor, and yet his betrayal didn’t square with the Errol he had grown up with. The weedy little book-obsessed outsider had turned out to be far more of a friend than any of the other boys in the village. Clun desperately wanted Errol to have been under some kind of mind control, to have been turned by King Ballah. Beulah left him that small comfort and quietly withdrew from his thoughts. Grasping his hand more firmly, she led him around the last corner.

  It was a vast underground store. Squat pillars marched off in all directions, holding up a ceiling that was higher than it felt. Into each pillar had been carved hundreds of small niches, and in each niche sat a collection of red jewels, glowing dully in the darkness.

  ‘King Balwen’s treasure. The jewels of more than ten thousand dragons.’ Beulah watched Clun’s open-mouthed expression, his eyes growing wider and wider as he took in each new sight. She walked slowly along the main aisle and he followed her as if hypnotized. His reaction delighted her. She well remembered the first time Melyn had shown her this place, the secret behind the power of the royal house. Then she had been too awestruck to speak, astonished by the endless whispering voices that spoke the thoughts and feelings of her people to her. Later she had learned how to distinguish those voices, how to focus on groups or even individuals. Even the strongest of minds could not long hide its thoughts from this place. The royal house had used that to its advantage down the centuries; no man could keep secrets from the ruler who sat on the Obsidian Throne.

  ‘It’s best you don’t touch them, my love. They are powerful things, but they are dangerous too. It takes decades of discipline and study to be able to handle a dragon’s jewels without losing yourself in them.’

  Clun had been reaching towards a niche, but he snapped back his hand as if the alcove had contained a venomous snake.

  ‘Why are these ones white when all the others are red?’

  Beulah walked over to where he stood at the end of the long aisle. The niches in the pillar before him were only half filled. Most of the jewels were blood-red, small and irregular in shape, but the ones Clun had pointed out were the size of hens’ eggs, brilliantly faceted as if they had been cut by a master jeweller and as white as a bridal gown.

  ‘These are the jewels Melyn brought back from his last hunt. Sometimes they turn white like that, but it’s very rare.’

  ‘They sing such a sad song, so lonely and incomplete.’

  Beulah stared at the young man who had suddenly come to mean so much to her. She could hear the whispering of the jewels all around her, telling their endless tales of petty lives, the little triumphs and disasters that made up each day for her subjects. With an effort of will she could focus her attention on a single niche, find her way into the mind of a single person, but from the white jewels she heard only silence.

  ‘The white jewels are of little use here. I don’t know why Melyn bothers collecting them at all. But come, my love; there’s one more thing you must see.’

  Clun seemed almost reluctant to leave the pillar and its curious white stones, but he dragged himself away and followed Beulah as she strode along the aisles towards the centre of the vast room. The central pillar was ten times as thick as the rest and made from stone that was pitch black. It had been polished to a mirror-smooth finish, reflecting the glow of the thousands of jewels surrounding it, and underneath the shiny surface strange markings scrolled like an ancient language.

  ‘We are directly underneath the Obsidian Throne,’ Beulah said, once more taking Clun’s hand. He looked nervously up as if expecting the massive structure to come crashing down through the ceiling at any moment. She reached up to his face and pulled his gaze back down to her. ‘It’s stood there for more than two thousand years, my love. It’s not going to fall down today.’

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’ Clun asked.

  ‘Because you need to know. The father of my child must share the responsibility of raising the heir to the throne.’

  He was in the forest again. Errol stood on legs blissfully free of pain and looked out over a familiar landscape of ancient trees. Close by, shaded by great cooling canopies of pale green leaves, the path meandered its way past their massive trunks. High overhead, the sky was duck-egg blue and dotted with the whirling forms of distant birds at play. The air smelled sweet and fresh, overlaid with the subtlest fragrance of spice. He was happy just to stand and breathe, free from pain, free from worry.

  And then he caught it, a lingering odour on the slightest of breezes. Complex and beautiful, it was spring flowers and autumn leaves, sun-baked rocks and cold water, the smell of soft soap and clean hair. He knew at once who was coming, and his heart soared at the thought of seeing her again.

  She came along the path, keeping to the leafy shade. Every so often she would look up at the gyring birds so high above. Then she would bustle across to the next tree, not running but moving with deceptive speed nonetheless. Errol was content to wait for her; he knew that she would reach him soon. Then they could be together. But when she reached where he stood, she didn’t turn to greet him. Instead she hurried on towards the next clearing.

  He tried to call out to her, but there was something wrong with his voice. He could hear her name as he spoke it deep in his head. But his ears heard nothing, only the constant hiss of the breeze in the leaves. He wanted to run after her, but his legs seemed fixed to the ground. And now she had reached the edge of the tree, pausing briefly before stepping out into the clearing.

  He knew what was going to happen next. He had seen it dozens of times already. Every night since he had arrived at Corwen’s cave. He was dreaming the scene. Martha was going to be captured by dragons and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He watched helplessly as first she confronted the dragons, seemed almost to convince them to leave her alone, then finally allowed herself to be carried off. Any minute now I’ll wake up, Errol thought as he realized that Martha hadn’t put up a struggle, had almost gone willingly with her captors. But instead of waking, he found himself out
in the clearing. The ground was scuffed and marked where the dragons had landed; otherwise there was nothing remarkable about the scene. Looking up, Errol could see birds wheeling and turning in the sunlit sky. They seemed so free, so joyful as they played. Then he realized they weren’t birds. They were dragons, dozens of them, chasing each other back and forth, clashing together in mid-air, tumbling down, over and over, before breaking apart at the last possible moment and climbing back into the sky on huge wings.

  Then they seemed to notice him. As one, the whole group turned and dived. Errol tried to run, but once more he was fixed in place. He tried to scream, but his voice would not come out. The great beasts grew bigger and bigger as they closed the gap with impossible speed, and he could see the bloody wounds of their play, the scars and missing scales of earlier battles. The dragons were filled with bloodlust, their eyes devoid of any intelligent spark. These were not magnificent creatures of magic and learning. These were feral monsters, wild as the birds of prey for which he had mistaken them.

  Errol shut his eyes against the rushing mass. He could hear their screeching and the dreadful sound of their leathery wings beating the air into submission. Louder and louder, they narrowed the gap, and he instinctively turned away at the moment of impact.

  It never came.

  Instead there was a roar of frustration, a great billowing wind that threatened to topple him over, then silence.

  At first he didn’t dare open his eyes, but Errol could tell that he was no longer in the forest clearing. There was a different quality to the air, a stillness that spoke of being indoors. Then through the silence he began to hear sounds: the soft clinking of stone upon stone, the near-silent creak of someone moving and a low miserable sobbing. Unsure whether he was awake or still slept, Errol opened his eyes.

  He was in a vast chamber carved from the rock. Pillars held up the ceiling, marching off into darkness in all directions. Only the area immediately in front of him was lit, and that by an enormous pile of jewels, luminous and white. The noise seemed to be coming from the other side of the pile, and Errol took a tentative step, unsure whether he would be able to move or not. His view shifted, though it didn’t feel like he had moved at all, and now he could see.

  Benfro sat on the floor in front of the mountain of jewels, his tail tucked around him like a patient dog waiting to be fed. Behind him a huge old writing desk looked like it had been pushed to one side, long-extinguished candles little more than globs of shiny wax in their sconces. At his feet were three small piles of the white crystals, and he was pulling more from the vast heap, weighing them in his palm one by one, before either adding it to one of the piles or returning it to the heap. Errol had not met many dragons, and wasn’t an expert on their expressions, but even he could see the terrible pain that this task seemed to be causing Benfro. His arms moved with a reluctant rigidity, as if he were fighting his own actions with all his strength. He held himself awkwardly, back pressed against the writing desk, pushing it hard with the base of his wing.

  And then Benfro stopped his sorting. Oblivious to Errol’s presence, he scooped up all the jewels from one small pile, hauled himself to his feet and set off with them into the darkness. Errol followed him bodilessly, devoid of any sensation of movement except his changing viewpoint. They passed down a long aisle between two rows of columns, coming finally to a wall carved with little holes. Some of these, Errol saw, were filled with the pale white jewels – less luminous here, almost dead. Benfro slowly poured the jewels he was carrying into an empty hole, leaning forward and resting his head against the cold stone as he did so, his whole body racked with sobs. All the while he seemed to be fighting, twisting around as if he wanted to smash his back against the wall and demolish it, tumble the jewels all back together. And yet he was powerless to do anything but head back to the large pile at the centre of the room.

  Too late Errol realized he was standing in the way. Benfro would have to trample him to get past. But the dragon simply walked straight through him. And at that moment of contact Errol felt a terrible presence all around him, a malignant evil that grew into a form visible in the darkness of the vaulted ceiling. It was a dragon’s head larger than any he had ever seen, and it stared into him, through him, with eyes as red as burning coals. It reached out for him with massive hands, fingers tipped with razor-sharp talons. Instinctively Errol took a step backwards, tripped over something and overbalanced. As he fell, he thought he heard an enraged scream, those crushing hands grasping the air where his head had just been. Then, with a great jerk of motion that nearly threw him out of his bed, he woke up.

  Melyn brushed a low-hanging branch aside, causing a cascade of rainwater to pour over his cloak, saddle and horse. The track through the trees was a lot more overgrown than he remembered, though scarcely a year had passed since last he had come this way.

  ‘Is there no end to this forest?’ He ducked under yet another branch, precipitating another deluge of water down the back of his neck. The icy cold against his skin brought his anger to the surface, and with a quick flick of the wrist he conjured up a blade of light, using it to hack away the branches ahead of him. When he saw that this was merely dislodging more water, he stopped, but not before his horse was soaked to the skin, his cloak a sopping rag pulling heavily at his shoulders.

  ‘Your Grace, I think we’re here.’ Captain Osgal wheeled his own horse to face the inquisitor. Melyn was pleased to see that the captain was just as wet as him, the rest of the troop possibly wetter. He spurred his horse forward under one more overhanging branch and out into the clearing.

  At first he wasn’t entirely sure it was the same place. The track that ran through the village to the green and the great hall was completely overrun with moss, grass and weeds; the burned-out shells of the houses had crumbled almost to nothing, made barely recognizable by encroaching vegetation. They rode through the jungle in silence. Of the troop only he and Osgal had been present during the previous visit, but everyone knew they were looking at the sort of growth that should have taken a decade, not a year.

  The green in front of the great hall was a sea of grass that tickled the bellies of the horses as they rode through it. The hall itself still stood, in frame at least. Its roof had collapsed, the plaster infill between the oak beams turned brittle and crumbly. Leaded glass windows sagged in their frames, loosed panes lying broken on the ground.

  Melyn dismounted, handing his reins to a warrior priest before pushing his way through the long grass to the heavy doors, still standing in their twisted, blackened frames. They sagged half open, and as he pushed on the weathered oak they swung inwards with a smooth action quite at odds with everything else in the ruined village.

  Inside, daylight flooded through the ruined roof to reveal a heap of burned and charred timbers, heavy stone slates and half-collapsed walls. In the middle of the room a huge table lay smashed in half. Benches along either side had been broken into so much firewood by the collapsing roof. Only the large carved wooden chair at the head of the table was unscathed, miraculously missed by falling masonry. Rain-streaked and weathered, it was otherwise almost perfect.

  Except for the sapling growing from the wood of its seat, reaching for the open ceiling and already twice as tall as a man.

  Melyn trod carefully over the debris, testing beams and huge stone slabs for stability before trusting his weight to them. He scrabbled over to the great table, even though he knew there was no point. There should have been the charred skeletons of thirty dragons in here, their skulls weakened by exposure and ready for splitting, their jewels waiting to be scooped from within. Instead there were more saplings, each one where a dragon might have been expected to sit.

  ‘Where did they go?’ Captain Osgal bent forward and pulled one of the saplings towards him, then cursed, let it go and put his hand to his mouth.

  ‘Bastard thing’s got thorns.’ Osgal held out his finger and Melyn could see a long ragged-edged tear in the skin. Blood welled out of the new cut, s
plashing to the floor to mix with the damp dust and ash.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Melyn retraced his steps to the door, Osgal following and grumbling all the while.

  As he climbed back on to his horse, Melyn felt a shudder run through him, as if someone were watching him in the aethereal. Slipping into the trance state with practised ease, he looked around the clearing for Queen Beulah’s form; he doubted anyone else could master the skill well enough to find him here and was surprised that even she had managed.

  She was nowhere to be seen, but the clearing looked completely different from his new perspective. For a start it was whole, undamaged and unclaimed by the surrounding forest. The hall was better than it had been when he had set it aflame, crisp and new like the day it was completed. The green below his horse’s feet was smooth and flat, the grass neatly trimmed. Over the arrow-straight and smooth-cobbled track, the houses stood solid and welcoming, the nearest and largest seeming to glow as if someone lived within.

  ‘Inquisitor?’ Melyn dropped out of his trance, turning to face the captain, who had wrapped his hand in a white cloth that even now was turning red with his blood.

  ‘What is it, Captain?’

  ‘Should we search the area? Try to find who took the jewels?’

  Melyn felt a surge of irritation at the man. He was a skilled warrior, if rather brutal in his manipulation of the Grym, but he was singularly lacking in imagination.

  ‘No, Captain,’ he said. ‘That would be a waste of time. The jewels are gone. Leave it at that. I should have sent a party to collect them earlier, but I had other things on my mind. I let myself get distracted. I shan’t make that mistake again.’

  He turned away from the captain and looked back in the direction of the glowing house that he had seen in his trance state. It stood taller than those around it, some of its shape still visible under the heavy blanket of brambles, bushes and ivy. Spurring his horse forward, he crossed the fast-disappearing track, using the animal’s bulk to force his way as close to the front door as possible. When he could go no further without risking injury, he conjured a blade of light and hacked at the vegetation. Silently, without being commanded, the warrior priests appeared at his side and began to help.