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by A. A. Attanasio

  Something else filled the air, sweeping aside the

  veils of rain. Musical voltage chimed in the soaring spaces of the forest. And the up-reaching arms of the trees

  swayed to a deep, oceanic rhythm.

  This was the Dragon's dreamsong, aimed at the

  stars. It passed through the unicorn on its way outward and shook happiness into the horned creature, making its heart laugh and its muscles quiver like soft wings. Warmth

  stroked its length better than the long necks of a hundred mothers. Its bones felt hollowed by a drowsiness full of blue.

  Lightning struck the tall horn, stood on its tip like a massive medusa ablaze in the celestial sea. Tendrils

  writhed and knotted to the rhythms of the dreamsong. As it vanished, the rainy world closed in.

  The Dragon was gone, shut away behind its pelt of boulders and spruce. The angel was gone, too. Silence stretched out into the dark crannies of the forest.

  *

  The supreme Druid, Dun Mane, so named for his

  long, equine face, slouches down the corridor, his white-and-green robes flashing in the swatches of early morning sunlight that ray through the colonnade. At the request of the duke, he has traveled three days for this audience with the queen, a woman he despises, and he is annoyed

  because he has barely had time to rest before her

  summons arrived.

  All the formalities have been met, to be sure, he mutters to himself, the scented bath, the fresh robes, harp song and victuals, even the appropriate incense—but the complaisance of it all! And the alacrity, as if I am to be dispatched like a common neatherd come in from the roving fields for refreshment!

  His inward sputtering stops at the great oak door

  engraved with dragoncoils. Two of the queen's dread fiana stand there, feral throwbacks of lost glory, wearing

  buckskin leggings and boots, the gold torque of Mother, and old-fashioned swords with leaf-shaped blades and

  small hilts. He abhors these men. Though they have won renown even among the duke's army as fierce warriors, they are an embarrassment to the Druids, who have

  forsaken the ancient ways for the modern reality of Rome.

  The door opens at his approach, and he faces the

  brutishly muscular captain of the fiana, orange-haired Falon. No emotion shows in the warrior's ruddy features, yet Dun Mane can feel the enmity radiating from him. Often in the past, the fiana have clashed with the supreme Druid's guard when this man denied Dun Mane access to the queen. The stooped, iron-haired Druid does not even attempt to disguise his rancor any longer, and glowers defiantly before that unreadable blue gaze.

  The guard bows his head perfunctorily and stands

  aside, revealing a loggia of breezy curtains saffron with sunlight. Garlands of fresh blossoms, larkspur and bryony, twine the columns and spill from large stone vases. Amidst flutter of diaphanous silks riffling in the wind, the queen sits cross-legged on a stone bench, eating grapes.

  As often as the supreme Druid has met her, he is

  always surprised by how pleasant, how strangely light he feels in her presence—though there is nothing else about her that he likes. The backache from his long cart journey fades, replaced by buoyancy that pours into him from the

  very brightness of the air surrounding her.

  It is the glamour, the benefit of her devotion to the Sid. In that, she is a remarkable queen, he is the first to acknowledge. If only her human traits were as developed as her glamour and her famous long sight.

  Dun Mane sweeps across the worn lozenge-stones

  of the loggia, forcing himself to stand more erect in the presence of his queen, while at the same time noting every infraction of her behavior.

  What manner of audience hall is this? he grouses silently, sneering at the windy veils and rampant flowers.

  And look at her sitting there, legs crossed like a village stitch-woman. What has Raglaw made of her?

  Two swords' lengths away, he pauses, as tradition

  demands, and waits. Eyes ringed with weariness, he meets Ygrane's quiet green gaze, and an old understanding

  passes between them: No matter their differences, they serve the welfare of the people—she with her magic and he with his politics.

  The queen gestures him closer nonchalantly,

  popping another grape into her mouth. She wears the

  traditional costume of the old queens, naked, like her fiana from the waist up, her brindled hair piled atop her head in an intricate knot.

  Again, as ever before, he is struck by her lucid

  complexion, sun-blushed with an overlay of tan from her long wanderings outdoors, so unlike the moon-pale Roman women. It is no wonder to Dun Mane, who lives at the

  Roman court and has become accustomed to modern

  ways, that the duke is happy to see his wife only on formal occasions. In his eyes, she would surely seem wild as a peasant, with her sun-bleached hair and dusky cheeks.

  "Some grapes?" she asks, her expression so

  childlike.

  'My lady—" he offers the formal Latin greeting, then catches the disapproving look and addresses her as a

  subject, calling her Mother.

  "These are good," she says with her mouth full.

  "First crop from the vineyards of Usk. The wine brokers in Glevum will pay a worthy price this year. Try one."

  He demurs with a stiff bow, wishing she would

  display some formality in his presence, as recognition of his office, if not his person.

  Ygrane removes the glazed blue bowl of grapes

  from her lap and places it on the bench beside her. She slumps her shoulders contritely. "You're angry at me for my poor hospitality."

  "Not at all, Mother." He bows again, this time more fluidly, feeling airy in the summer-sweet wind. There has

  never been any warmth between them since he became supreme Druid six years ago. His predecessor, Tall Silver, had been responsible, along with the crone Raglaw, for selecting the queen and removing her as a child from her hill village.

  Tall Silver had the long sight, and Dun Mane does

  not, so he cannot to this day understand what his elder saw in this amiable yet remote person. To his eye, she is but a common village girl superficially trained in court manners. He loathes her assumed air of superiority, and that is why he is continually surprised by the levity he often feels near her. "Your hospitality is flawless, your harp player the very best I've ever heard—"

  "I've rushed you, Dun Mane. I know you're annoyed with me." In the bright morning light, she sees the fine gray threads of whisker on the flat of his cheeks, shaved

  beardless in the Roman style. "I apologize for that. You would have had more rest after your long trek had I known you were coming. Now you are here, and I am called away.

  So, this is the only time I can see you before I leave. I did not want your tedious journey to pass in vain."

  Dun Mane touches his green leather headband,

  then his heart, and offers his blue-knuckled hand. The queen squeezes it tersely, impatient with ritual as ever, and he sits on the wooden bench that Falon places before her.

  Her informality at least allows him to be direct, and he asks, "Called away? By whom, Mother?"

  "My friends," she says, and helps herself to another grape, eating casually, at ease, as though not a day has passed since their last meeting when in fact it has been four months.

  Dun Mane's long, sallow face leans closer. "The

  faerie?"

  "You've said I'm not to call them that around you."

  "Not when we are with others, of course. The

  Christians feel strongly about that, Mother. And more and more of us are Christian these days. The old ways have no place among the new. That is the way of the world. But you are of another time, another life, and between us, we may call them what they are."

  "I'm going into the hills for the midsummer moon, Dun Mane. I need to le
ave early to arrive by dark." A frown pinches her brow. "Unless, of course, you've come as usual to fetch me. Is it the chiefs or my husband who sends you?"

  He looks her level in the eye, further annoyed at her impatience and glad for the full measure of his authority,

  "Both. The chiefs have called another war council. They want you present and no excuses this time. And the duke

  summons you to Tintagel. The sea rovers attack in ever greater numbers. He needs you at his side."

  "I will send a war party to the mighty duke. And Falon will represent me among the chiefs at the war

  council."

  The seams of Dun Mane's large face knot tightly

  between his dull steel eyes. "The duke wants you in person, Mother. He requires you to meet him at Maridunum for the council of the chiefs."

  "He may have my warriors. I am taking my daughter to the lakes for the midsummer moon."

  The Druid presses his palms together apologetically,

  yet privately gloats. Most of all, he has always hated the obstinate indifference with which the queen meets her responsibilities, and he is glad whenever he finds the authority to force her to fulfill her role. "The duke requires Morgeu at Tintagel, as well."

  "Why?" Ygrane's crossed legs unfold, and her indignation nearly brings her to her feet. "The summer is still full. We have agreed she is to stay with me until the autumn."

  The Druid tosses his hands helplessly. "The duke believes that it is time his daughter learned battle

  strategies. He wants her in his war room."

  Ygrane exhales with sharp disbelief. "She is seven years old."

  "The duke himself was but seven when he was

  summoned to the war room by his father, the old count."

  The queen senses the pride in his voice and is

  disgusted. In their eagerness to preserve their power, the Druids gladly truckle to their Roman allies, the very Romans labeled invaders before Tall Silver's time and the marriage he personally arranged between her and the

  duke.

  Dun Mane, emboldened by the queen's silence,

  which he takes as submission, adds, "Mother, his intentions are correct. These are wartimes—"

  Her voice tightens angrily: "I know these are

  wartimes, Dun Mane. That is my grief as queen."

  "Of course—" The look in his furrowed face is mockingly sincere. In the six years that he has been forced to work with her, he believes he has come to know her so well, all her surly dispassion to modernity and her puerile devotion to the old ways.

  For a while, before the alliance, there was actually a political expediency to her archaic primitivism. The clans admired it, then. But now, since the alliance, the Roman way has been carried to the farthest croft of the land, and every farmer and herdsman wants more Roman goods and

  weapons. She can dictate nothing anymore. He forces himself to remain cordial to her, out of respect for her station, not her befuddled person. "I only mean, Mother, that we must all make personal sacrifices for the war effort—even young Morgeu. We must think of the people."

  "The people is it?" a voice like a rasp of snakeskin lashes him from behind, and the crone Raglaw steps

  through the flutter of silk curtains.

  Dun Mane glances over his shoulder and glimpses

  through the gauzy drapes the child Morgeu skipping across the courtyard among several fiana, gamboling with a remarkable white horse shaggy as a wolfhound. Distracted by the crone's hooded presence, he does not notice the steed's brow-tusk before the curtain wavers back into place.

  "The people will serve whoever feeds them," the crone says, sitting beside the queen with a crepitant noise.

  "Very like the Dragon."

  The supreme Druid's bulky face carries a look of

  sadness as he nods toward the crone in her gray sack

  hood. "Dame Raglaw, since our queen's alliance with the duke, the Romans have been feeding our people and

  protecting them far better than the Dragon."

  "That is sadly so," Raglaw acknowledges, tilting her hood toward the queen, "because we have not properly fed the Dragon. We have withheld from the Drinker of Lives the offerings that could win us the protection we need."

  In a dry, commiserating voice, the Druid adds, "The magic of the Sid has been waning since the Roman gods drove them underground four hundred years ago, since the slaughter of the ancient Druids on Mona."

  "Pitifully so—" the crone agrees, her hood bowed.

  "The magic passes, like embers turning into ash, leaving behind their empty shapes in the cold dark where once there had been radiance."

  "Magic passes as our gods fade into the earth," Dun Mane says. "The new god, the nailed god of the Romans, he is different—one god, three faces."

  "He is a desert god," the queen protests. "How can any in the Tribe of the Abiding North honor such a one?"

  "Whole clans have gone over to this desert god,"

  Dun Mane points out, eager to inflict some humility on this arrogant young woman. "Chief Kyner says that only the Christian god can stop the Furor's hordes."

  The queen's voice flicks angrily: "Are you

  abandoning the Sid for the nailed god, Dun Mane?"

  "I?" The supreme Druid looks startled. "Of course not. I am just pointing out that many of your subjects have already converted—and many more will."

  "Thank you, Dun Mane, for your insight," Ygrane says in cold dismissal. "You may go now."

  The Druid strives to contain his anger at being so

  rudely sent away. "Then, you will come to Maridunum—

  with your child, to meet your husband and the chiefs?" he asks, proud that his voice remains calm and reasonable when he feels like shaking all the false dreams out of her.

  The queen turns her face so that her green eyes

  seem to brighten, and the Druid's ire evaporates.

  Something lithe and sweet in the summer's breeze lilting through the sunny curtains soothes him and makes anger impossible. He nods amicably when Ygrane says, "Yes, yes, we will meet again in Maridunum. I will decide then among the chiefs whether my presence is required at

  Tintagel."

  "Thank you, Mother." Dun Mane rises, touches his headband but does not offer his hand. He bows and

  departs light-footed, green-and-white robes swaying,

  almost dizzy with an inexplicably happy relief.

  "Were you not a little too strong on the glamour with him?" the crone asks after Falon closes the door behind the supreme Druid.

  "I just want him to go away. His love of the Romans sickens me. To hear him talk about the old Roman gods driving our Sid underground and then for him to sing

  praises of their new god—I needed the glamour to keep from punching him." She rises and stretches, her mind pacing ahead, measuring the length of the day now that she has been summoned away. "There are rinses to be made, while the unicorn is still here. I'll tend to that. Have you met, yet, with the Dark Dweller who has just arrived?"

  The hood shakes once. "I am tired, Ygrane.

  Prodigiously fateful as he is, this demon dressed as a man, I am tired. But fear not. I will find the strength—for he is our best hope for our people."

  Ygrane moves to comfort her teacher, and the old

  woman holds up the leathery knob of her hand. "Go to the unicorn now. There is little time if we are to travel so soon to Maridunum. Save your glamour for the likes of Dun

  Mane."

  Ygrane concedes with a small hug, feels the hag's

  bones shift loosely under her embrace as if they are held together not by tendon but by will alone. "Come," she says.

  "Join us in the sun."

  "Yes—the sun," Raglaw hisses softly and rises. "Let the sun touch me yet again, before I vanish into something better."

  *

  The Celtic guards watched Lailoken closely, though no one would speak with him, fearing his wizardry, and he spent the remainder of the night doz
ing by the campfire curled upon himself The warriors took turns standing over him, their spears ready to pierce him at the first indication of deviltry.

  He ignored them. In his mind, as he dipped in and

  out of sleep, he returned to the remarkable vision of that wondrously proud child riding the unicorn, giddy and

  careless as a spirit that knows death for an illusion.

  In the morning, he stood upon the ashes of the

  night's fire and faced the military fortress and the tottering headlands of sheer rock cliffs that blindly stared across the thrashing waves toward the misty, sapphire island of Mona.

  Masses of redstone battlements and orange-and-

  yellow stone ramparts rose above lush emerald grasses and the ocean thrift, and he recognized this place from his time as a demon. Then it was called Segontium and, with Maridunum far to the south, marked the western extremis of the Empire's conquest in Britain.

  Lailoken had inflicted many a nightmare in the stone

  halls of these garrison outposts, harrowing the newly Christian conquerors with visions of lust and hellfire as was his wont in his former life.

  Though the Romans had abandoned this fort more

  than half a century earlier, the timber gate towers remained intact and the defensive ditches still sloped steeply; however, as the party crossed the narrow wooden

  footbridge that spanned the ditches, Lailoken observed that the cleaning slots at the bottom, the "ankle-breakers" that tripped up attackers, had grown in with thorny shrubs. The Celts lacked the precision of the Romans, and that

  presaged ill in their clash with the Furor.

  They entered Segontium by a narrow doorway in the

  main gate and passed through the courtyard, where the L-shaped barracks garrisoned several hundred men—almost all of whom emerged into the courtyard to see the so-called wizard that Morgeu had captured during the night. One glance at the scrawny old man in shredded hides was

  enough for most of them, and they returned to their

  business in the barracks and stable blocks.

  These timber buildings had fallen into miserable

  disrepair since Lailoken's last visit, the clapboard walls rotted and repaired with wattle and daub. The via praetoria, the road that led from the front gate, had surrendered most of its cobbles for repair of the fortress wall and had been reduced to a rutted dirt track pocked with muddy puddles.