by J. D. Oswald
‘And my people? What has become of them?’
‘They have been found places to stay, work to keep them occupied. It is not easy, since the men of Nantgrafanglach speak only Draigiaith and lack the skill to master your Saesneg quickly.’
‘May I see them?’ Iolwen asked. ‘May I speak to them?’
‘Of course.’ Sir Conwil inclined his head again. ‘Although you may wish to hear what I have to say first.’
Iolwen sat back in her chair, Prince Iolo resting in the crook of her arm. The other members of the party had fallen silent at the dragon’s appearance, all eyes on him. She knew that they needed to understand what was happening as much as she did, but she also realized that Sir Conwil wanted some privacy. She let him wait a while longer before relenting. Rising, she handed the prince to Lady Anwen.
‘Please attend to him and remain here until I return.’ She gestured to Usel. ‘Come. I will need your wise counsel.’ Finally she went over to where the dragon sat, trying not to be overwhelmed by his size, his musk and the sheer weight of his presence. ‘Shall we walk a while?’
‘Better yet, I will take you to meet …’ Sir Conwil paused a moment as if considering his words. ‘I hesitate to say leader, as that means something entirely different in your tongue. But yes, she is our leader at the moment.’
Iolwen opened her mouth to speak, but before any words could come out she felt that familiar sensation of motion without moving, the darkening of all around her to a black so deep it seemed to suck the life out of her. And then she was somewhere else.
Dafydd would have been the first to admit that he was not his own best company, but after a week on Merrambel he began to get used to the solitude. The first few days were spent half in panic wondering how he would survive, half in pacing the beach close to the spot where the dragon Merriel had left him, praying for her return.
Each evening he would forage for dry wood and light a fire, as much for the cheer of it as any heat. The nights here were warm, the days almost unbearably hot unless he hid in the shade of the great trees that rimmed the shoreline. He had worried about food at first, but the sea teemed with fish quite unused to being hunted, and the bushes lining the path to the great dragon statue were heavy with fruit. Some of it he even recognized, at least from books, and nothing he had eaten had poisoned him.
The first day, and for many days afterwards, he had not wanted to stray too far from the beach lest he miss Merriel’s return. Each evening he would settle himself by the fire and try to find the trance state that would let him enter the aethereal. The peace and quiet helped, and soon he could slip in and out of a trance with barely a thought, but he was so far removed from anything he knew it was impossible to do much with the skill. To strike out over the featureless water was to invite dissipation, and whereas when he had practised this magic in his grandfather’s palace at Tynhelyg the life force of all the people for miles had been easy to detect, here the utter silence only confirmed for him how truly alone he was.
As the days became first a week and then two, so Dafydd began to grow restless. He made short forays into the woods, struggling through vegetation far more lush than anything that grew in Llanwennog. He visited the valley with the statue of the dragon every day, studying it from a distance. The base of it was hidden from view by thick undergrowth that made approaching it all but impossible, especially in the heavy, damp heat. Each night he would return to the beach and his fire, stoke up the flames and wait for Merriel’s return. She did not appear, and the longer he waited, the more he realized that if she was coming, she would find him wherever he went. She had found him at the Neuadd, after all. Surely she would have no trouble locating him halfway up the steep-sided mountain that formed the bulk of this island, what had Usel called it? Mount Merram? Sitting at his fire and staring out across the endless sea, Dafydd decided that the next day he would explore further.
He rose early, breakfasted on fresh fish and then followed the stream that splashed down from the mountain to the beach. Without any means of carrying it, he dared not venture too far from his only source of drinking water. It took him back to the valley of the statue and he spent a while looking at the great work once more. The dragon had been carved in relief, standing tall and with its wings folded closed so that their tips – the joints, he realized – rose above its head. What had Usel said the beast was called? Eirawen? No, that was the land far to the south of here. Earith, that was it. And she was a healer venerated in human form by the Order of the Ram, the travelling monks and medics among whose number Usel counted himself. Of all the men of the Twin Kingdoms, it was Rams who could most be trusted. That much Dafydd knew. His own father had insisted Dafydd be stitched up by a Ram when he’d injured himself out riding many years ago. Prince Geraint had shooed away the palace healers as soon as he had heard one of the order was visiting. Sent for him straight away.
Dafydd smiled at the memory, remembered the scar that his father had been so proud of. That wound should have left him with a permanent limp, but it scarcely bothered him at all now.
He pushed through the undergrowth beside the stream, wishing he had something to chop away the heavier leaves. Then with a laugh he remembered his training and conjured his puissant blade. It blazed bright even in the sunlight, the power of the Grym potent here. For a moment Dafydd hacked away, clearing himself an easy path, but each frond cut felt like a violation in this untainted place, his destructiveness no better than the ugly mess wrought by the dragons who had demolished most of Candlehall. After just a few minutes he extinguished his blade and pushed on without it.
As if it understood and appreciated his gesture, the forest seemed to clear itself out of his way. Dafydd soon found himself standing at the base of the statue, where the stream emerged from a dark cave between the creature’s legs. He approached the cave mouth, peering in. Sunlight filtering through the trees lit only the first few paces, but a cool breeze wafted out of the cave, suggesting there was an exit somewhere, and a well-built stone path led into the darkness alongside the stream. Intrigued, Dafydd stepped into the mountain.
At first he was comfortable with the dark and the gentle burble of the stream as it ran beside the path. And then he saw lights flickering in the distance. Not the magical glow of the Grym, but something more earthly. The fire of flaming torches. His eyes accustomed to the darkness, Dafydd could see the shape of the cave. The path was wider here as the stream narrowed almost to nothing, cutting deep into a cleft in the rock. He could step over it easily and head towards the light. As he took that pace, a small leap that was as easy as climbing a single step, it felt like the whole world twisted around him. He paused, one foot on either side, the invisible stream deep below him, and for an instant he imagined he was cut in half. The sensation passed as quickly as it had come, but it left him with a lingering sense of wrongness that was hard to shake.
Walking swiftly so as to put some distance between himself and the odd feeling, Dafydd soon reached the opening through which he had seen the lights. Warm air caressed his face, bringing with it scents of spice and something else he couldn’t identify, but it was the sight that greeted him as he stepped out of the cavern that was so confusing Dafydd could only stand and stare.
It had been morning when he had left on this adventure, and surely not more than an hour had passed since then. Now he gazed down upon a city bathed in the darkness of night. Not a city deep underground; he could clearly see stars speckling a distant sky. Buildings stretched away from him, down a shallow slope towards a calm sea reflecting a sliver of crescent moon. The flickering orange light he had seen was cast by dozens of flaming torches set at regular intervals down a long street, wide enough for a dozen carts to pass. The houses to each side were low, single-storeyed with flat roofs.
Without realizing he was doing it, he walked towards the nearest, and only then understood the scale of the place. The cave had brought him out above the city, and the low buildings were higher than some of the smaller palace wings
back home in Tynhelyg. It took Dafydd far longer to reach the first one than he had expected, and when he turned to see where he had come from, there was only forest, dark and impenetrable, behind him.
The breeze carried new aromas to his nose: cooking meat, spices and more delicate scents. It also brought the babble of conversation, impossible to understand at a distance. He pressed on, and the further he went, the more he heard words that he simply didn’t understand. He had studied many languages, was fluent in Saesneg and Llanwennog and could get by in some that very few people spoke any more, and yet the voices he was hearing now were as alien to him as the dragons.
The road opened up into a huge square and he began to see them now, people much like himself though perhaps better dressed and certainly cleaner. At first none seemed to notice him. Too busy about their trading, for this was clearly a market though one far larger than any he had seen before. As he entered the square though, the first stallholder and his customers fell silent. Dafydd did not know what was compelling him, but he ignored their stares and carried on walking. The cacophony of voices fell silent behind him as he came closer and closer to the centre. He felt the heat of a thousand pairs of eyes on his back, and yet he still felt no fear.
A shallow raised pool filled the centre of the square, a fountain leaping up from the middle. Its splashing cooled the warm night air and reflected the light cast by a dozen or more brass torches. Low, wide steps led to the water’s edge and Dafydd climbed them with weary legs. He had been walking only for a couple of hours, he was sure, but his stomach rumbled with hunger and the water smelled sweet, so powerful was his thirst. It hit him all of a sudden – exhaustion as if he had been marching for days. His mind told him not long had passed at all, but his body suggested a different story.
There was no sound save the rustling of the breeze in the frond-like leaves that sprouted from the tops of the narrow-trunked trees. The whole square, which had moments earlier been abuzz with the noise and bustle of commerce, now held its breath. Unaware of the tension, Dafydd slumped to his knees at the water’s edge, bent low and plunged his hands through the cool surface. He scooped refreshing liquid into his mouth, gulping it down as if he had not drunk in days. Scrubbing at his face he could feel the bristles of a substantial beard on his chin, the grime of a long trip on his cheeks. Running his fingers through his hair he realized it was lank and long. And then the ripples disappeared and he saw his reflection in the surface. A gaunt, thin face, cheeks hollow, stared back at him with his own eyes.
‘What happened to me?’ He looked at his hands, which were caked in dirt as if he hadn’t washed for a month. On the beach just that morning he had cleaned himself thoroughly, as he had every day since arriving there. Yet now he was as filthy as a beggar at the city gates.
‘You crossed between the worlds. Such a thing can take its toll on mind and body both.’
Dafydd tensed at the words, his head aching as they formed in his mind. Something large cast a shadow over the whole pool, and he saw in the gently undulating water the reflection of movement. He looked up, twisting his neck round to see, and almost fell in. A dragon loomed over him. At first he thought it would attack him, but he was too weary to put up much of a fight, too confused. Then he noticed that the creature was old, hunched like an arthritic. Its eyes were white with cataracts and half the scales on its face and arms were missing. It was no threat, and neither were the men standing behind it in a wide arc.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Where am I? How did I get here?’
Some of the men started to speak among themselves in their strange tongue, but the dragon silenced them with a slow sweep of its arm. Its voice rose in Dafydd’s head again, and he could hear the feminine tones somehow. Not it, but she.
‘You came here by a Heol Anweledig that has not functioned for many thousands of years. That might explain why it took you so long to traverse it, though it must have felt like just an instant to you. And as to who I am, well, I am Earith and this is my home, Pallestre.’
19
The Falem archipelago of islands stretches north through the Southern Sea from Eirawen like rocks strewn across the floor by some giant hand. All are centred around single mountains, some of which smoke from their very tops and occasionally belch fire and brimstone. The islands are all now uninhabited, though many show signs of a civilized society long since departed. Legend tells of the men of Eirawen fleeing some natural disaster, heading north and settling the lands that would become the Twin Kingdoms, and perhaps there is some truth in those tales. Though the land is fertile and the seas abundant with fish, the islands of the archipelago are too small and too unstable to support much of a population. A far better explanation for the deserted towns and derelict temples is that the people who built them were driven onwards by some slow-spreading catastrophic change in Gwlad.
From the travel journals of Usel of the Ram
The fall was exhilarating, but it highlighted one big flaw in his plan. Errol had just enough time to register his nightshirt flapping up about his head and exposing the rest of him to all who could see before he hit the surface. Water exploded around him in a cacophony of bubbles and light, finishing the job the wind had done by ripping the thin fabric completely off. In a way that helped, leaving him unencumbered by clothing as he plunged down into the pool. He had no idea how deep his jump had taken him, but it clearly wasn’t to the bottom.
Although he had always been a strong swimmer, Errol couldn’t recall ever having dived deeper than when he and Martha had fallen into the pool at Jagged Leap. He pushed himself down ever further, kicking his legs and dragging his arms through water that grew darker with each passing moment. The noise dissipated almost to nothing, just a muffled rushing sound and the heavy thumping of his heart. His eyes all but useless, Errol opened his sight up to the aethereal again, astonished at the clarity it brought him in this dark place. He could see fish circling him nervously. Currents eddied slowly, not strong enough to trap him like old Ben Coulter. Below him something glowed faintly in the gloom. He pushed on deeper and slowly the bottom began to reveal itself.
Long weeds swayed back and forth, glowing gently with the Grym. Small creatures scurried about in the sand and silt. The base of the pool was uneven, rising vertically on the side where Errol had fallen in the day before, at a more shallow angle on the beach side. The middle was almost perfectly flat save for a large mound, and as he kicked towards it, so he could better make out its shape.
At first he thought they were branches off some great tree, poking up out of the silt like grasping fingers. Green algae clung to them, moving in the tiny currents, lit with its own Grym. It wasn’t until Errol had reached the nearest of the branches that he understood what it truly was: a rib bone thicker than his thigh.
It was what he had been looking for, but still seeing the last remains of Magog came as a shock. His lungs were beginning to hurt with the effort of holding his breath, his thoughts growing sluggish. Errol reached out for the rib, hoping to pull it free, but it was stuck fast in the mud. He used it to pull himself along in a direction he hoped was the head, searching for a smaller bone, something he could hope to take back to the surface with him. Time was running out though. Soon he would have to push up towards the surface or risk drowning.
The bones were hard to see in the aethereal, dead as they were, but ancient magics clung to them like moss, protecting them from decay. Errol went from rib to rib, pulling at them with greater desperation, each as solid as the next. Magog’s skull rose ahead of him, half-buried in the silt, cracked open by the rock that had killed him. Vertebrae oozed up out of the mud, as big as his own head and stuck fast, but a few fragments of bone lay within that massive skull. The place where Benfro had found the jewel.
Errol pulled himself forward, swam into the gaping hole that had once been Magog, Son of the Summer Moon. Plate-sized shards of skull lay strewn around, but as he reached for one, he was suddenly overcome with a terrible fear. What if there were
more jewels still in the mud of the pool bottom? What if he accidentally touched one? Would he be able to survive the kind of onslaught that had nearly destroyed Benfro? Errol kicked away from the skull. He wanted nothing more than to get back to the surface, breathe, leave this sacred place.
But he had to get some bone. Without it there was no end to the madness. With the last of his strength he dived back into the open skull, reached out and grasped the first piece he could reach. He didn’t have the energy to focus on the aethereal any more, and his vision faded to deepest black as his fingers closed tight. A moment’s disorientation as he turned head over heels in the water and then he was struggling upwards.
Bubbles escaped from between his lips as he kicked out with weak legs. Weeds wound around his ankles, dragging him back down. He desperately needed air, but up above was as dark as down below. It felt like he wasn’t moving at all, just hanging in the water. Was this how Ben Coulter had died? No, he’d knocked himself senseless on a rock, hadn’t he? Or was that Magog, brains bashed in by some giant bird sent by King Balwen? Errol struggled to make sense of anything at all. He was cold, so very cold, and tired. He’d struggled for so long, worked so hard, could he not just have a bit of a rest? Get his strength back. Sleep.
Water poured into his open mouth, choking him so suddenly he almost dropped his precious cargo back into the depths. Errol shocked awake, but it was too late. His lungs were spasming of their own accord, gulping down water, losing all his precious buoyant air. He could feel the depths dragging him down again. He would die here, his bones mingling with those of the great dragon mage.
Something grabbed him under the armpits, heaved him up. A body close to his warmed his back, held him tight. In moments his head broke the surface as Nellore heaved him towards the shore, then dropped him half in, half out of the water. Crashing to the sand drove some of the water out of his lungs, and soon Errol was heaving and spluttering, coughing up great spouts of river as he fought to breathe.
