The Obsidian Throne

by J. D. Oswald

  The Fflam Gwir is thus both a weapon and a medicine. The purest distillation of the power of Gwlad. The essence of the Grym.

  The Llyfr Draconius

  Chaos filled the room as a dozen and more warrior priests burst in through the doorway, fanning out into the open space to do their leader’s bidding. Some stumbled on the steps, landing face down in the snow. Others conjured swift blades of fire, cutting paths through the debris of Melyn’s first attack as they headed for the motionless dragons. The inquisitor leaped towards Myfanwy as the pent-up energy of his conjured fireball exploded in her face. He meant to press his advantage while the light and heat dazzled her, but she swept the fire aside as if it were nothing.

  ‘You will not find me so easy to best, Melyn son of Arall.’ She stepped forward, flowing into the Grym and reappearing behind him with a swiftness quite at odds with her age. Two warrior priests crumpled and fell dead as she twisted a hand in the air, pulling all the Grym out of them and their blades before she hurled it at Melyn. He ducked below the blast, feeling the heat scorch the air above him, singeing his hair. Glancing up, he was just in time to see the dragon disappear once more, but this time he was ready for her, tracking her along the lines, anticipating where she would reappear. His ball of fire exploded right in front of her, knocking her off her feet so that she crashed into the overturned writing desk.

  ‘Not so clever now, Myfanwy Bach.’ Where the name came from, Melyn wasn’t sure. It was something Magog had called her, perhaps, or a taunt. It was not him speaking now, not him in control of his actions. He knew the feeling of the Shepherd’s touch well, but this was something more intimate even than that. It felt better, more complete, as if this was how he was meant to be.

  Risking a look towards the huge open windows, he saw his warrior priests harrying one of the other dragons. A great hulk of a beast, it was slow and old but its scales were thick, impervious to their blades of fire. Across the other side of the room, two younger dragons were fending off a concerted attack from half a dozen of his men. Melyn’s blind eye painted a confusing pattern of aethereal and Grym over the mundane view, but there was something wrong with what he was seeing.

  ‘Give yourself over completely, Melyn son of Arall. There is no need to fight any more.’

  Magog’s voice expanded through him, filling him with warmth and strength. Melyn had not known he was resisting, but as he relaxed, so his vision expanded, the confusion of the view melting away until it all made perfect sense.

  There was only one living dragon here at the top of the tower. All the others were projections, the solid yet ghostly forms of long-dead long-reckoned jewels. A part of him knew that they lay in a hoard somewhere close by, lending their support to Myfanwy. Finish her, and they would dissolve away to nothing.

  ‘Ignore the others. Concentrate on this one.’ He barked the order, turning back to Myfanwy. She had recovered from her fall and was backing away towards the fireplace, cold and empty. The warrior priests formed a semicircle, trapping her, their blades of fire humming with power, ready for the kill. Her milk-white eyes flitted from side to side and she threw the occasional ball of fire, but she was clearly tiring. No longer able to just reach into a man and pluck the life out of him. No longer a threat.

  A commotion behind him distracted Melyn’s attention. Whirling, he saw movement at the top of the steps, the entrance through which the warrior priests had so recently swarmed. A small dragon, female, young, her scales deep green, stumbled across the threshold. Her appearance was quite striking, something Melyn had not really considered in a dragon before now. Her eyes widened in alarm and surprise as she saw him and his warrior priests, and she turned to hurry back through the doorway. Something blocked her way, another dragon who tripped as if exhausted beyond the ability to stand, tripping into the tower-top room.

  Had a part of his mind not been expecting him, Melyn would not have recognized the battered and beaten beast. His wings hung from a thin frame, scales discoloured and scratched, missing in far too many places. Someone had taken a chunk off the end off his tail at some point, and the inquisitor couldn’t help but find it amusing they had both lost an eye.

  ‘Well, well. If it isn’t Sir Benfro.’ Melyn smiled, the scales on his face crinkling at the unfamiliar expression. He turned back to his warrior priests, still holding Myfanwy at bay, meaning to order them in for the kill, but the old dragon just stared past him, nodded once.

  ‘They’re here. It is time,’ she said, and disappeared.

  Long before he had recovered himself, before he had even been able to struggle up from the floor, Benfro knew that there was something very wrong. His missing eye showed him the room with dreadful clarity: at least a dozen warrior priests encircled Myfanwy, who had backed into the unlit fireplace. The aethereal forms of several ancient dragons hovered around the edge of the room, but they were dead things, jewel projections like Corwen. For all their magnificence, they were powerless against the trained minds of the warrior priests. And worse still, standing in the middle of the room beside the remains of the golden cage, was a thing that was half Inquisitor Melyn, half Magog.

  Then he heard Myfanwy’s voice in his head, so quiet as to be almost a whisper. ‘It is nearly done, Benfro. Stay strong until I return.’

  He looked up at her, saw her nod just once, then she flowed away into the Grym and was gone.

  ‘Always a coward, that one.’ Melyn-Magog spun on his heel to face Benfro once more. ‘I will get to her in due course. But now what are we going to do with you?’

  Benfro struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain that lanced through his side. He could feel the fire growing inside him, fuelled by hatred and anger. He took a step forward, then froze as the creature that had once been the inquisitor raised one hand. With his missing eye Benfro could see the cord as it looped from his forehead into the Grym. Where before it had been palest red, now it pulsed with a dark crimson hue, each surge timed to the beat of his hearts. Melyn’s own aura, twisted into a crude dragon shape and shot through with ugly slashes of colour, gripped the cord tight.

  ‘You are mine, dragon. You have been since before you were hatched. Everything you have done in your sorry life has been by my design. Do not think that you can change that now.’

  Benfro pushed back against what felt like a fist crushing him. He concentrated on his own aura, pale and weak, stretching it out to the knot tied around the rose cord. But it was already there, already choking off that foul influence as best he could manage. Still Magog-Melyn’s mind pushed into his own thoughts, digging out an image here, an emotion there, as if he were a thief going through someone else’s belongings, throwing aside any that didn’t interest or excite him. Benfro tried to push the inquisitor away, but he was so tired.

  ‘You will not have him!’ Relief came so suddenly, Benfro surged forward, almost falling over again. Beside him Cerys stood tall and defiant, her own aura spread wide as a shield between the two of them and the inquisitor. Benfro thought he might have had a chance to gather his remaining strength for an attack, but Melyn-Magog simply shrugged his shoulders. There was a fluttering sensation in the Grym, as if a bat had flown past him in the night, then Cerys let out a little squeak of surprise and crumpled to the floor.

  ‘What … what have you done to her?’ Benfro knelt beside the collapsed form, reached out for her, realizing too late that he had turned his back on his attacker.

  ‘Don’t worry. She’s just sleeping. A prize like her’s too good to waste. And besides, I will need a consort when I am reborn.’

  Benfro felt the touch like a knife into his flesh. He twisted to see Melyn-Magog standing beside him. He was so small, so frail, Benfro could have swiped a taloned claw and cut off his head, yet he was unable to move.

  ‘Don’t fight it, Sir Benfro. This is what you were always supposed to be.’

  The voice Benfro heard was Melyn’s, that harsh, nasal tone that he remembered all too well from that fateful day outside the cottage, when Morgwm
the Green had met her end. The voice in his head was Magog’s, proud and arrogant, the great dragon who had taken him under his wing, promised to teach him all of the subtle arts. They overlapped each other perfectly, fitted together so well they might have been the same being.

  ‘Now you begin to understand how long I have been working towards this end.’ The inquisitor held up both hands, weaving them around an invisible ball hanging in the air at head height. The Grym surged and spun, and then a dark red jewel, the size of a hen’s egg, appeared in the middle of it. A moment later it was joined by another, and another. Something fell through the air, smacking to the floor with a wet slap. Benfro stared incredulous at the massive fish as it flopped around blindly, gasping in the air. More soon joined it, brought through the Llinellau from wherever they had swum to when he had freed them from Magog’s retreat at the top of Mount Arnahi.

  Sharp clinks on the stone floor were rings, amulets and other trinkets, their jewels joining the growing mass of red that swirled between the inquisitor’s hands. Benfro could do nothing but watch, mesmerized by the light flickering from the tumbling stones, the heat of the twisted Grym that radiated from them. The collected jewels of Magog, son of the Summer Moon, the greatest dragon mage ever to have lived. Or at least the most depraved.

  ‘Depraved, Sir Benfro?’ Melyn-Magog put heavy emphasis on the title, sneering at Benfro’s powerlessness. ‘I rather think inspired. What greater magic can there be? Had I not preserved myself in my retreat, spread myself throughout Gwlad, then I would truly have died all those millennia ago. My jewels would have lain unfound, unreckoned, reclaimed by the Grym. My knowledge would have been lost for all time.’

  ‘I think that would have been for the best,’ Benfro said through gritted teeth. Melyn-Magog held the slowly revolving ball of jewels in his aura, suspended just above one hand now, and with the other he reached out towards Benfro’s head.

  It was like an explosion behind his eyes. Benfro couldn’t breathe, could scarcely see as memories of his earliest kitlinghood burst across his vision and then disappeared. He thought he was going to pass out, heard a distant scream, felt it pouring from his own mouth as if the two were entirely separate things. Then with a horrible popping sound, the pain ended.

  Light-headed as if he had drunk deeply of the wine from that endless goblet at Magog’s table, Benfro looked up to see a single fat red jewel hovering above Melyn-Magog’s empty hand. His own jewel, plucked from his head. His essence stolen.

  ‘Do you see how this goes now?’ The thing that had once been the inquisitor sneered and reached out towards Benfro’s head again. He moved away as best he could, as if mere distance could stop the desecration of his mind.

  ‘You could have had it a lot easier, if only you’d not fought the inevitable. I would have merged with you through that connection forged when you rescued my one remaining true jewel. But you fought, struggled against me, ran to my brother’s hated realm. Now the link is tainted; I cannot use it. It’s no matter. Better to purge you entirely, then I will take your mindless body and make it mine.’

  The pain cut through Benfro’s head again as Melyn-Magog searched for another jewel deep within his brain. He struggled against it, unsure how to protect himself, unsure if it was even possible. He cast out with his missing eye, searching the room for anything that might help, but the power was all his enemy’s now, the Grym his to command entirely. The warrior priests watched on impassively; Cerys lay motionless on the floor; even the spirits of the long-dead dragons who had helped Myfanwy to calm the storm that had begun at Gog’s death were fading away now, their horrified expressions only making Benfro’s helplessness more acute.

  And then something glimmered in the Grym behind Melyn-Magog. Benfro’s hearts leaped as he saw a handful of figures shimmering into existence. Myfanwy towered over Errol, Martha and Nellore. Two others stood beside them, people he didn’t recognize, but that was no matter. It was what Errol held that was important. Magog-Melyn might have summoned all his removed jewels to him, but one jewel, one true jewel, remained. Now it sat in Errol’s hand atop a piece of bone so old it was almost rock, and Benfro knew it for what it truly was. Hope fluttered in his hearts as Benfro felt Cerys grasp his hand, heard Myfanwy’s voice over the arrogant sneer of his foe.

  ‘Now, Benfro.’

  He took in a deep breath as Melyn-Magog turned, realizing at that moment that something was wrong.

  ‘How—?’ But Benfro didn’t let him finish. With all the force he could muster, he breathed out the pale blue Fflam Gwir, on and on until there was nothing left in his lungs and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

  Errol froze as the fire leaped over them all like it was alive. Melyn twisted as the fire enveloped him completely, choking off his voice. Living flesh and scale it left untouched, warming weary muscles, soothing away aches and pains, but the slowly rotating ball began to fade from dark blood to rose, to palest pink and finally to white. The air boiled, writhing and roiling into angry shapes that distorted the view, forming what looked almost like a dragon in the throes of agony.

  Out of nowhere, a wind blew up so violent it carried the broken furniture across the room, whipping it out of the vast open windows and into the void. Screams cut short were the last words of warrior priests caught unawares by the gale and blasted into oblivion. But, enveloped by the flame, Errol felt nothing of it. Pressure built in his head, squeezing his brain until he thought his eyeballs must surely pop out. He tried to move, but the flame held him tight even as it protected him from the raging storm around him.

  As the last of the fire drifted away to nothing, the twisting ball that had been floating at Melyn-Magog’s head lost its shape, breaking apart into dozens of fat, clear jewels that clattered to the stone floor like hail. With the last of them, the pressure popped away, the wind died to nothing. The being that had been Melyn slumped slowly to his knees, arms hanging loose as he swayed gently from side to side. A thin dribble of drool leaked from the corner of his open mouth, and his one remaining eye stared unseeing at nothing, as if a light had gone off inside his head.

  Errol let out a long slow breath, only then realizing that he had been holding it in. The bone fragment that had been in his hand was gone, replaced by a fine dusting of ash on his fingers that drifted off in the breeze. Outside, the clouds had parted, pale blue sky shimmering with the distant rising sun. All around he could hear the sounds of people and dragons coming to their collective senses.

  Then the air hummed behind him, and Errol felt the pull on the Grym as a half-dozen warrior priests conjured blades of fire. He wheeled to see them spreading out as they emerged from the fireplace where they had sheltered from the storm that had cleared their comrades and everything else from the room. He was sluggish after the reckoning, and the first attacker was upon him so quickly he had no time to defend himself. With a sickening sense of inevitability, he knew he was going to die.

  But the moment never came. The warrior priest stopped mid-swing, his blade sputtering out to nothing as a leathery, taloned hand wrapped around his neck.

  ‘Your battle is lost, little man. It is time to stop now.’ Myfanwy squeezed harder, then let the man go. He slumped to the floor, knees striking the flagstones. Errol saw his comrades falter, their blades disappear. They looked to Melyn for leadership, but he merely knelt in the middle of the cluster of fallen jewels, mindless as the empty husks in the almshouses at Emmass Fawr. One by one they dropped to their knees, bowed their heads in surrender. Would that the hundreds still sacking the city below were so easily turned.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Errol asked as Myfanwy approached, peering cautiously at the kneeling white-haired old man. She reached out a finger and gently lifted his chin. Melyn’s head tilted up, but his one remaining eye was staring at nothing. When she took her finger away, his head stayed at the angle she had left it.

  ‘He gave himself to Magog. To his precious Shepherd.’ She passed a hand through the air around Melyn’s head, back and
forth as if examining him without actually touching his flesh. ‘He has begun to turn into a dragon, it seems. When Benfro reckoned Magog’s jewels, there was one forming deep inside his brain. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but it is clear now, not living. The man you knew is dead.’

  Errol’s sigh of relief was short-lived. Beyond what had been the inquisitor, Benfro lay unmoving, his head flat against the floor, neck outstretched where he had collapsed. Beside him the young female dragon was stirring now, shaking herself awake and drawing in so much energy from the Grym that Errol felt a chill in the air.

  ‘Careful now, Cerys. The Llinellau are much more powerful here than at the Twmp.’

  ‘It is not for me, Myfanwy. Benfro needs our help.’ She laid a hand on the unconscious dragon’s shoulder, murmuring soft words in Draigiaith under her breath. After a moment’s pause, Myfanwy went and stood beside her, adding her own magic to the healing. Then Martha nudged past Errol without a word. In moments she too was by Benfro’s side. The three of them joined hands, Martha looking very small beside the other two, and together their rhythmic chanting filled the room. No one moved, no one dared move as the most potent of magics surged around them. It went on for a long time, the shadows retreating down the walls as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, and slowly, inch by inch, they brought Benfro back from the brink of death.

  The inquisitor was still kneeling motionless when Benfro finally let out a choking gasp, then spasmed. Everyone jumped at the noise, even the warrior priests flinched though they had said nothing all the while, but Melyn simply carried on gazing into nothing, his head still at that awkward angle.