‘You seen the lines prop’ly yet?’ She asked, not unkindly though the question sent a small shudder of resentment through him. Try as he might, Errol couldn’t see anything that the book had promised would appear to the diligent student. In recent weeks he had become ever more despondent at his failure, to the point where he had all but given up trying. And yet he was still drawn to this place by the possibility.
Ignoring his silence, Martha sat herself down beside him, swinging her legs over the drop. Errol was all too aware of how close she was and couldn’t make up his mind whether her familiarity was pleasant or unsettling. Deciding on the latter, he tried to inch a small gap between them, but she just leant closer, resting the weight of her head against his shoulder so that he had to support her or let her fall over.
‘You hain’t seen ‘em yet, have you,’ she said.
‘No,’ Errol conceded. ‘I haven’t. Sometimes I think they’re nothing but figments of an overactive imagination.’
Martha looked up at him, mercifully leaning away as she did. She seemed to be studying his features in the decaying light and he wondered if he should look back at her, deciding it was easier to concentrate on the scrubby trees that dotted the far bank of the river.
‘That’s why you don’t see ‘em, Errol Ramsbottom,’ she said eventually, with a little triumphant flourish in her voice. ‘There’s a part of you don’t want ‘em to exist. So they don’t.’
‘What’re you saying? I have to believe in these lines to see them?’
‘That’d help,’ Martha said. She pointed at the trees, picking out one far upstream first and then going to the next and the next in succession. ‘I can see the grym flowing between each of those trees. That one there,’ she pointed to one almost directly across from where they sat, ‘that one’s dying. The grym’s all weak around it, kind’ve broken up. It’s only still alive ‘cause of the nexus.’
‘The nexus?’ Errol asked despite himself. He always found his curiosity at Martha’s seemingly endless knowledge was greater than his irritation at her.
‘Ain’t you never wondered ‘bout this place, what makes it so special?’ She asked, without expecting an answer. ‘It’s a junction between two powerful lines of the grym. That’s why I said you’d see ‘em here. They’re so bright, I thought you’d see ‘em easily.’
‘I can’t see anything,’ Errol said sadly. ‘There must be something wrong with me.’
‘Only in your thinkin’,’ Martha said, suddenly grabbing his hand and pointing it into the darkening distance. Her grip was warm and comforting in a manner that both alarmed and exhilarated him. ‘Look over there, towards that big oak. The west line goes straight through it, over the ground to where we’re sitting. An’ there,’ she pulled his hand around so that he was forced to turn and face her, to smell her dark hair and the subtle aroma that rose from her skin. ‘The north line comes in through that gap in the shrub-cover and follows the line of the river downstream. Follow it now,’ she pushed his arm around, leaning out dangerously over the drop to the water below until she reached around him, her small body pressed closer still to his. ‘All the way down the slope with the river until the bend. It carries on straight. I don’t know where, same as I don’t know where it comes from. Someday, when I’m a bit older, I’m goin’ to find out.’
Errol strained his eyes in the darkness, trying to make out anything whilst trying not to think about how much he was enjoying Martha’s close company. He could see the water, white as it splashed across the rocks below the pool and tumbled down towards the bend about fifty yards away. It was difficult to make out anything as night fell completely. Overhead was cloudy, only the dullest reflection of retreating sun lending any light to the scene at all.
For a moment he thought he could see something. A tiny sliver of doubt tried to tell him that it was just the water running over rocks, but it was too still, too perfectly straight to be foam. And the more he looked at it, the more it seemed to carry on past the bend in the river and on into the forest beyond it.
‘You can see it now, can’t you,’ Martha said, her voice a soft, breathy whisper in his ear.
‘I can see something,’ Errol said, turning to face her, clinging to her hand still as if it were the solution to the problem he had been fighting with for over a year. He pointed upstream and traced the faintly glowing path of what he thought he could make out above the dark, fast-flowing stream. ‘It comes from there, all the way to here, where we’re sitting.’ He looked quickly back across the water. ‘And yes, I can see it swelling up from the roots of the oak. That must be why the tree’s so big. It’s feeding on the grym!’
With a surprising reluctance, Errol let go of Martha’s hand and turned to see where the line went behind them after its intersection at the rock. With each passing second it was growing stronger in his sight so that everything around it seemed cast in shadow. Even so he could feel something wrong about the scene, as if an easily overlooked detail had been removed. Or something was there that shouldn’t have been.
At the same instant as Martha gasped in alarm, Errol heard an all-too familiar voice say ‘Told ye I’d get even, Witch Boy,’ and a heavy object caught him a glancing blow across the side of his head.
*
Benfro and Ynys Môn walked through the evening and on into the glowering darkness, their path lit by the stars and a sliver of crescent moon in a clear autumn sky. For a while Benfro thought they were going to walk all night, but eventually they came upon a clearing and, with a theatrical creaking of hips, the old dragon suggested they stop for the night. Benfro dropped the deer carcass and set about making a fire. It was late and all he really wanted to do was sleep, but he knew his teacher would expect a meal.
‘Don’t bother, Benfro,’ Ynys Môn said once the flames were crackling. He had picked up the carcass and extended a single talon to begin butchering it but now he put it down away from the heat. The old dragon reached into his pack. His hand stayed there for long moments, as if he were searching for something, though the bag was not that big. Finally he smiled and drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle which turned out to be cheese and cold meat. He handed over half before settling himself down in front of the crackling flames. Benfro sat in the warmth and began to eat, wondering how his teacher had managed to hide a satchel full of food from him for the whole of their trip. His curiosity was momentarily curbed by the realisation of just how hungry he was, and soon the meal was devoured.
‘Why do men hate us so?’ Benfro asked once Ynys Môn had finished eating and was sipping from a flask which he seemed disinclined to share.
‘Ah, now there’s a question that gets to the heart of it all,’ the old dragon said, stoppering his flask and setting it by his side. The flames of the fire lit his face with flickering orange, highlighting the scars and chipped scales on his weathered face, arms and chest, but there was a gleam in his eye as he began to speak again.
‘Some say it goes back to the legendary times, to great Gog and Magog and their disastrous battling over Ammorgwm the Fair.’ Ynys Môn must have seen the blank look on Benfro’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know that story,’ he said incredulously. ‘What has your mother been teaching you all these years?’
‘Herbs and potions mostly,’ Benfro said. ‘Sometimes she tells me stories about Rasalene and Arhelion. And she told me the one about Palisander and Angharad, but Sir Frynwy tells it better.’
‘Hmm, well. I’ve no doubt the bard could tell you about Gog and Magog too, but since he’s not here, I’ll have to do my best. A short version of it anyway, since it’s as good an explanation as any other as to why men hate us so.’ He cleared his throat, making a fair if exaggerated impression of Sir Frynwy before one of his special tellings.
‘Gog and Magog were twin brothers, both hatched under the confluence back in the times of legend, when dragons were masters of Gwlad. They were wise and magnificent and there was nothing they couldn’t do if they set their minds to it. But like all great mages,
they had a fatal flaw, for both were insufferably arrogant. And they both fell in love with the most beautiful dragon who ever lived, Ammorgwm the Fair.
‘She was without compare. More beautiful even than Palisander’s great paramour, Angharad. Her smile could melt the coldest of hearts and none could meet her without coming away from that meeting a better dragon. Gog and Magog both knew they were destined to wed her and both wooed her with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsession. But Ammorgwm cared for no one in particular, she loved everyone the same, in her innocent, unworldly way.
‘Now whether it was Gog who first grew suspicious of Magog or the other way, well it doesn’t really matter. The brothers fell out over who’d have Ammorgwm and their argument soon turned into battle. Before long their warring shook Gwlad. The sky burned. The earth broke open. In their arrogance they cared nothing for the rest of dragonkind, only for what they wanted.
‘It was Palisander himself who went to Ammorgwm, so the tale has it, and asked her to intervene. He was very old by then, and respected by most. He knew that no one but Ammorgwm could make the brothers stop their terrible fighting. And if they didn’t, then soon Gwlad would be destroyed. But Ammorgwm was a simple soul, as naïve as she was beautiful. She understood nothing of violence. She wanted only for everyone to be happy, and so she walked out to meet Gog and Magog in their field of battle. The brothers were using terrible, powerful spells to try and overcome each other. Poor Ammorgwm was struck down by a mystical blast rebounding.
‘At her death the whole of Gwlad stood still for an instant, shocking even Gog and Magog out of their dreadful rage. When they saw what had happened, what they had done, they were distraught beyond measure. Neither would admit fault, each blaming the other, but equally they could see the danger in their warring. So without a further word they went their separate ways, vowing never more to speak to one another.
‘But Magog went a stage further. He hated his brother so much he couldn’t bear to breathe the same air or fly in the same skies anymore. He worked a great magic, both wondrous and terrible, that split Gwlad into two spheres. Gog and his followers were banished to one whilst Magog and his clan lived in the other.
‘The world was riven, families rent apart. There was no time to say goodbye, no time to retrieve favoured possessions. It all happened in an instant, for Magog had planned it that way, knowing his brother would try to twist his working if he but had a chance. And Magog was right to be so wary, because it is said that Gog gave a parting gift to his brother.
‘He opened up men’s eyes to the subtle arts. And at the same time he gave them his own hatred of Magog and his cronies. Over the centuries this hatred grew along with their power, and as it grew so they stopped discriminating between followers of Magog and the thousands of neutral dragons who’d remained in his sphere. All were fair game. We dragons might live long lives, but there’re few enough of us. Men live only a few tens of years, but they multiply with each new generation. And they’re vicious, violent. They love to hunt and kill just for the sport of it.’
The old dragon paused, taking a sip from his flask. ‘I don’t know if there’s even a grain of truth in the legends. They say Gog and Magog lived more than three thousand years ago and even old Sir Frynwy’s only fifteen hundred. If it happened at all, it was long before any of us were hatched. Maybe it’s just a tale told to teach us the folly of pride. Whatever the truth of it, men hate us. They’re powerful in magic and they’re numerous beyond counting. If they weren’t too busy killing each other most of the time, we dragons would have been hunted to extinction long ago.’
Silence filled the clearing for a while, underscored by the crackling of the fire, the occasional shriek and hoot of night animals as Benfro imagined the two warring brothers, the beautiful Ammorgwm and brave Palisander. It was a good tale, every bit the equal of Sir Frynwy’s tellings, and with added atmosphere given the setting, but it left so many questions unanswered.
‘But you saved their king,’ Benfro said. ‘So why’d they go back on his word?’
‘Because that’s how they are, Benfro. Divitie may have been a friend to us, but simply abolishing a law can’t undo the blind fear and hatred behind it. Men are very slow to change their minds and some have their power only because of the way things were. The Order of the High Ffrydd was set up to hunt dragons to extinction. D’you suppose they’re going to welcome us with open arms?’
Benfro stared down at the fire, feeling small and helpless. ‘Must I hide from them all my life?’ He asked.
‘By the moon, no! There are places in Gwlad where men are few and far between, places where dragons are at least tolerated rather than actively persecuted. We live here because we made that choice. Our village is protected, hidden away as long as we respect its magic. You’ve yet to make your choice, Benfro. You might settle with us, or you might take the long road like your father. You might even seek out those few other dragons spread out across the land. But first you have to grow up. You need to learn about the subtle arts, about your heritage. Until then, we will do everything we can to protect you.’
‘I want to learn magic, but mother won’t let me.’
‘Of course not. A dragon cannot begin his apprenticeship until he turns fourteen, Benfro. You know that.’
‘But if men are so dangerous, shouldn’t I learn sooner? At least enough to sense them coming, or to hide from them?’
Ynys Môn put away his flask, took up a long stick and began poking the fire, banking it up for the night. Benfro knew it was time to sleep, the conversation was over, and he settled himself down with a weary resignation.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ the old dragon said. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t leave you so helpless.’
‘What do you mean?’ Benfro asked.
‘Morgwm will hate me for it,’ Ynys Môn said. ‘And I’ll get a stern talk from Sir Frynwy. But tomorrow I’ll show you a simple spell. One that won’t get you into trouble, and may well help you at times.
‘Tomorrow, young Benfro, I’ll show you how to hide.’
~~~~
Chapter Five
Dragons set great store by their jewels, which they believe store their collected wisdom and memories even after death. In their ceremony of reckoning, the body of the dead is burned with special oils until nothing is left but ash. Then the healer, generally one of the more senior members of their society, takes the revealed jewels to a secret place, where those from other dead dragons are stored. In this way the creatures, who are great solitary wanderers in life, find a camaraderie in death. The persistent myths of dragons having great hordes of treasure most probably stem from this practice, but in truth the beasts set little store by what men might consider treasure.
There is one exception to this practice, however. When one whom the dragons consider to be a great mage dies, then his jewels are placed in a solitary place, away from the others. Usually these places are considered naturally powerful by dragons, and in times of great stress they will go to them, presumably to pray to the memories of their dead leaders for guidance.
Dragon’s Tales by Fr Charmoise
Errol was too close to Martha, their arms linked. And they were both of them too close to the edge. Stars flashed in Errol’s eyes as his sense of balance flipped through ninety degrees. For a flickering moment he thought he could see Trell’s face turning from smiling glee to horrified concern as he realised his enemy was not alone. But it was too dark to see such details, surely. Then with a lurch, his head snapped back upright and he realised he was going to fall. Scrabbling, he tried to push Martha away from him, back onto the top of the rock, but she grabbed at him in fear, clinging to him as they both went over the edge.
It seemed to take forever to fall to the water and all the while, Errol could see the great, yellow, pulsing lines of the grym spearing away from him. On the bank he could see the smaller lines connecting the smaller trees, the sickly looking and palest strands faltering around the base of the dying tree that Martha had
pointed out earlier. Beyond that he could see a finer web still covering the ground like a woven sheet, following every bump and contour as it linked individual blades of grass. And he could see tiny flickering lights of a different shade or colour, moving freely over the grym like ants on a boulder. Then, as he realised that they were ants, and other insects and small animals, each bright with the life force of the world, he hit the water.
It drove the air out of his lungs like a punch to the stomach. Cold wet hands grabbed at him, pulling him down to the blackened deeps. He could feel Martha panicking, thrashing around to free herself from their tangled embrace. He was a strong swimmer himself, but judging by her frenzy Martha was not. He tried to relax, to orient himself and regain the surface. It wasn’t far to the edge where the sandy beach ran down into the water. They could get out there easily, if he could just calm her down enough to float.
A burning sensation in Errol’s chest reminded him that he needed to breathe more urgently than anything else. Panic flirted with his mind, threatening to overwhelm him. He fought it down, realising as he did just how easy it would be to die now. And for Martha to die too. Struggling against the cold that sapped his strength and the intense pain in his chest, he reached out for the thrashing figure above him, hoping his touch would calm her enough to save them both. Then something hard and sharp and boot-like connected with his head and everything changed.
The dark was warm, which was odd. Errol could remember being in the water, the cold chill tugging at his legs, sucking his clothes to his puckering skin. He could remember being spun slowly by the lazy, powerful current, pulling him downwards with exactly the same force as his body wanted to rise. Yet now he was sitting in the warm and dark, calm.
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