Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (10 page)

As he watched, she dipped a cup into the
bucket and turned away from the well, unconsciously bringing
herself into silhouette against the luminescence cast by the
lantern, and he faltered to a stop. For an instant she looked as a
dark flame cleaving the light, until the graceful continuation of
her movement clarified the outline of her body—the limned rise of
her breast flowing into her torso and the gentle curve of her hip,
the slender length of her legs. There was naught of darkness about
her, he told himself, disgusted at his wayward thoughts. The only
darkness lay in his own black heart, for like the perilous dragon
vision, she quickened his blood, though with a far different
result. He was in truth a boy that he could be aroused so
easily.

He had only to follow his course and the
shift in the wind to arrive at her side. Instead he turned his feet
to the north to skirt the well. He had come back to the keep to
find her, and he had. He had wanted one more look, and it had been
given. ’Twould have to suffice.

~ ~ ~

Llynya pulled the bucket up onto the rim of
the well and balanced it there, glancing toward the field from
whence Mychael ab Arawn would come. A not-so-chance meeting left a
few things up to chance nonetheless, and a little care was not
misplaced. She did not want him to pass by unnoticed.

She picked up a silver cup and dipped it into
the bucket for a drink. The night breeze off the Irish Sea wafted
over the outer curtain wall, caressing her cheeks and tangling
through her hair, and setting the grass aflutter. She smelled the
salt tang of it, so unlike the verdured winds that came down out of
the mountains. Turning her face a bare degree, she happened upon
another scent and stilled.

’Twas him, moving through the fields, his
essence mingling with the grasses, so different from the
tylwyth
teg
.

She closed her eyes, waiting, breathing him
in. His was a richly layered scent, warm and animal, bespeaking a
life beyond her ken, of years spent behind cloistered walls filled
with smoking tallow candles and the pious chants of men. Faint but
true, she read his history on the wind. The forest was there,
winding through his days. The sea had come and gone in his life,
and far and away beyond it all there was a scant strain of that
which she sought—the ether of time, dark-edged and dangerous...
a tremor ran through her, sinew and bone, a stark shadow of fear
cracking open an abyss at her feet. She leaped back, away from the
sharp edge and into a pool of light
—and came up against the
well wall. Water spilled onto her hand. Her eyes flew open.

“
Shadana
...” The prayer fell from her
lips. She’d learned a bit of sight in Deri, naught to rival
Moira’s, but enough apparently to give herself a good jolt. Well
enough warned, she chided herself, to go using deep-scent on a
man-child of Merioneth, a Druid whether he willed it or nay.

He came out of the fields then, and the first
sight of him confirmed the wisdom of caution. Gods, but he was
wondrously strange. No two parts of him matched. Even his boots
were made from the skins of two different kinds of animals. She
recognized rabbit fur tufting out of his left boot and vair out of
the right. His left stocking was mostly white monk’s wool, his
right mostly Quicken-tree cloth, the both of them patched and no
doubt the cause of his elusive light-and-shadows stride. A wide
leather belt worked with silver was buckled around his waist,
holding his sheathed knives and a short-bladed sword.

He was going a bit awry of the path, and left
alone, he was sure to miss the well.

’
Twould be better to let him go
, an
inner voice whispered. She shunted it aside and called out,
“
Malashm
, ho!”

He slowed to a stop and looked up to where
she stood, hesitating for a long moment before starting in her
direction. If he returned her greeting, she did not hear it.
Mayhaps he nodded, mayhaps not. ’Twas hard to tell with the light
against her and his face shadow-painted with woad. He stopped again
not too far from her. There was yet an inch or two of empty space
behind her, enough to accommodate a small retreat, though not
enough to calm the racing of her pulse. Standing on a level with
him, she realized it had been an intuition more powerful than
cowardice that had earlier kept her on the wall.

No savior here, for certes, but mayhaps a man
who indeed had spent too long alone in the depths of the earth. He
was taller than she’d thought, lean and feral with an air of wary
tension about him, and broader across the shoulders than any
tylwyth teg
. The stripe in his hair was startling when seen
up close, a bright swath of copper and bronze glittering in the
lantern light with an odd metallic sheen.

He was stone silent, standing at the edge of
the light, and she wondered if he couldn’t speak. Some wild
creatures couldn’t—though most spoke to her—and he was at least
half-wild, if not more. His eyes were veiled by the dark of night,
yet she felt his gaze tracking over her with a keenness that
unnerved her.

She swallowed softly, wondering what she’d
gotten herself into and how she would ever turn him to her need, or
indeed even manage to escape the well if such proved necessary. He
moved closer in a silent step, and she instinctively pressed back,
her fingers making a warding sign. His gaze flickered downward, and
when his eyes met hers again, he seemed to know more of her than
she would have wished.

Sticks! What was she about? She would ask the
world of him, to breach the gates of time and set her upon a path
from whence she might never return. Warding herself against him was
not the place to begin. Nor was it to her advantage to let him know
a single step of his was enough to force her retreat.

He gestured toward the cup. “I would have a
drink,” he said, his voice low and gruff, as if in truth it did not
get much use.

“Aye,” she managed, clearing her throat and
holding the cup out.

Their fingers touched when he took the silver
mug, and she was chastened again to feel only warmth and not the
least bit of sizzling power. Trig would have her wrung and hung if
he saw her acting such. She was elfin Liosalfar, Yr Is-ddwfn
aetheling, and the match of any man, even wondrously strange ones
with a trace of magic about them.

Aye, there was that too. With him now in the
light, she could see it. ’Twas the Magus Druid in him, a feyness in
his eyes she’d also seen in his sister. Things were wont to shift
in those blue-gray depths, and not just in shades of awareness. He
had sight, and she wondered if that was how he’d seen his way clear
to enter the wormholes.

When the cup was drained, he handed it back
and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “This morn, in Riverwood,
’twas your tale I followed to find you. Next time, bring your
friends inside the wall if they would hear a story.”

With that affront, he turned to leave, and
Llynya nearly let him. Yet piqued or not, she would have him stay.
In fact, she felt a powerful reluctance to have him leave, and
hadn’t she offended him first with her warding sign? Tit for
tat—not such a good start for what she would ask.

“The birds are not mine to bid,” she said,
quickly finding her voice, “but do only as they will, not so unlike
yourself.”

“Aye,” he agreed, stopping and returning his
gaze to her. “I do as I will.”

“And what of another’s will?” she asked
boldly. “If the need was great?”

He considered her for a moment, and to her
surprise, the barest smile touched his mouth. “Rhuddlan has indeed
grown wily,” he said in his rough voice, “if he would send you to
speak of needs.”

A mystery of words there, but she divined
their meaning enough so to feel warmth creep into her cheeks. What
a strange thing for him to think, that Rhuddlan would barter with
her company, and even stranger that the thought would bring a smile
to his lips.

“I have not come from Rhuddlan,” she
said.

His smile faded. “I trust the witch of Wroneu
Wood even less than the Quicken-tree man,” he warned.

“Nay,” she corrected him. “Madron has not
sent me. I come on my own behalf.”

At that, his brow furrowed. “Come for
what?”

“You saved my life,” she said, having long
since decided on her opening gambit. “You’re the archer from the
damson cliffs, and I’ll never forget what you did.”

“ ’Twas no—”

“Llynya!”

They both turned at the sound of her name
being called. Llynya stifled a groan. She’d run out of time. ’Twas
Aedyth approaching the well at a fair clip, her skirts hiked up to
hasten her strides. The healer had not wasted her day either,
speaking to all and sundry and learning enough to denounce Mychael
ab Arawn as an unstable Druid boy. She knew the way of these
things, the healer had said, and Llynya should listen. Rhiannon’s
son was not all that he seemed and was a good deal of what couldn’t
be seen, a darkling beast, Aedyth was sure, though none else had
dared to name him such.

“Come away, girl,” the healer called out. “I
have looked the night long for you and would have you in your
bed.”

Double-sticks.

“Aye, Aedyth. I’ll be there soon enough.”

“Your soon enough will not be soon enough for
me,” Aedyth admonished. The old woman came alongside her and took
hold of her arm. “Nor soon enough for Rhuddlan. He’d speak with
you.”

“Aedyth, I—”

“Enough, sprite,” another voice interrupted.
“Rhuddlan calls, and ’tis your duty to abide.”

Mychael jerked his gaze from the girl to the
darkness beyond the well and cursed himself for acting the besotted
fool. He had been so intent on the maid, he’d not noted the man
running up behind the old woman. ’Twas Bedwyr, the one who liked
him least of all the Quicken-tree, and he had his hand on the haft
of his knife, his message clear.

What did the old dog think? Mychael wondered.
That he would ravish the girl?

Another glint of blade farther to the east
caught his eye. ’Twas more than just Bedwyr calling him out, though
he knew they dared go no farther. Rhuddlan would not have him
hurt.

“What’s this, Bedwyr? Trev?” the girl asked,
her manner turning surprisingly imperious. “I need no escort
here.”

When the men didn’t reply, but only finished
unsheathing their blades, she went for her own knife.

Mychael grabbed her wrist before she could
free the dagger.

The old woman gasped.

“Put up,” he told the girl, even as he
wondered who she was that Bedwyr acted so rashly on her behalf. “
’Tis for your protection that they act thus.”

“And do I need protection from you?” she
asked, pinning him with her gaze.

“Mayhaps.” He spoke the truth and saw a fresh
blush rise to her cheeks.

“Nay,” she answered. “I think ’tis you who
needs protection from them.”

“And you would do the deed?” He released her
with an odd reluctance, as if he might yet think of a reason to
continue holding on to her. She smelled of lavender, luscious
scent.

“Aye. I am Liosalfar, sworn to protect those
in my keeping.” The grim seriousness of her words and the gaze she
leveled at him surprised him again. ’Twas no light thing she
offered, and he wondered at the why of it.

“But still a chit who needs looking after,”
the old woman interjected, her mouth firming into a tight line. She
gave the maid a tug, and this time the elfin girl moved.

Mychael stepped back and let her go, shifting
his attention to the two men. Fools both. If he’d wanted to make
away with the girl, it would have taken more than Bedwyr and one
other to keep him from it. Had not the blade-master learned that
much of him yet? For certes Mychael knew more of him, and now he
would add another weakness to Bedwyr’s tally. He would not forget
that ’twas more than dislike the man felt, and that fear skewed the
blade-master’s judgment.

Bedwyr was with them to deep dark on the
morrow and would bear watching. The caverns beyond the Magia Wall
allowed little room for weakness, and fear was the dark’s surest
path to death.

O
n a ledge high
above the floor of a great cavern, and far below the land of
Merioneth, Mychael knelt by a freshet of water and dipped his hand
in for a drink. They were four days into the earth, three days past
the Hall of Lanbarrdein, two and a half days beyond the Magia Wall,
and into the home of the old worm on a scouting expedition to the
deep dark. Not three paces from him, the stream poured over a cliff
face and dropped into dusky gloom. His dreamstone blade gleamed
brightly in its open sheath on his belt, spreading blue light into
the mist roiled up by the falling water and glinting off the iron
stars affixed to the leather guard that banded his right arm. A bow
and quiver were slung across the pack he wore. An iron dagger,
pattern-welded with a cutting edge of steel, hung ready at his left
hip. His short sword was on his right.

Fires flickered along one wall of the cavern,
dotting the darkness with yellow flames. He and Shay had set
firelines to trap the old worm on the far side of the track Trig
had chosen for the sortie. ’Twasn’t the first time the captain had
paired him with the young Quicken-tree to herd the beast off the
trails so others could safely hone their skills in blind scouting
the deep dark. He and Shay could blind scout caverns in their
sleep.

They didn’t trap the old worm every time they
came below, but Trig was not wont to take any chances of late.
Better to have the trail clear, he’d said. That meant setting
firelines. Nothing could clog up a tunnel or a trail more
thoroughly than the old worm. Although the smaller
pryf
could be prodded along with a dreamstone blade or sung into
submission—wild though they’d become—the ancient one was where he
was, unless stopped by fire.