The Broken World (30 page)

He was dreamwalking.

The understanding dawned on him as swiftly as a shiver down his spine to the tip of his tail. There was an instant when he might have fallen out of the sky, might have woken, might have lost himself completely, but he held tight to the vision of his hands and soon he was in full control.

Knowing it was a dream didn't lessen the wonder. Benfro soared over the trees far faster than he could have flown awake, and yet he could see clearly through the
sparse leaves of the canopy to the spindly branches and fat, tuberous trunks. Deer darted through the undergrowth, spooked by the thought of something overhead. Or were they just the dreams of deer? The dreams of trees? There was so much he didn't know about dreamwalking. Sir Frynwy had been going to teach him, Meirionydd too, and as he thought of them Benfro let out a low keening wail at their loss. His friends, his family.

There was little time to mourn them as the forest changed, first to huge oaks and beech, then tall conifers and finally petered out altogether. He could sense that the air had turned colder, or maybe it was the sight of snow in the high mountains, now much closer than they had been just seconds before. Far ahead, Benfro's keen eyes scanned for a horizon he might recognize, but the narrow, jutting spire of rock was like nothing he had ever seen before.

And then he saw that it wasn't rock, or at least not natural. This was a tower, built by someone. Or something. And there was a terrible familiarity about it.

Closer still and he began to recognize details. He had been here before, somehow flown here with Ynys Môn's jewels. Three dragons had attacked him and he had dropped his precious hoard. They had fallen inside the wall that he could now see surrounding a building so large it made Inquisitor Melyn's monastery at Emmass Fawr seem tiny. Benfro scanned the skies as he approached, looking for any sign of impending attack. He could see nothing, not even a bird. Only the tower reaching ever upwards from the sprawling mass of buildings.

He flew over the wall as low as he dared, tail barely missing the topmost parapet. Even so it was several
hundred feet to the ground. He tried to remember the previous occasion he had been here. If he had been here at all. How did the dreamwalk work? He was not physically here, surely. He was back in the cave asleep. With—

Benfro almost crashed into the ground, almost woke up. Cerys had come to him in the night. She had climbed into his nest of heather and dry grass, put her wing around him like she had done when he was still sick, like his mother had done when he was still a kitling. He had fallen asleep with her warmth all around him, her intoxicating scent.

He shook his head to get rid of the image, furled his wings and came in for a perfect landing. The ground between the wall and the vast buildings it surrounded was laid to grass mostly, perfectly flat and cropped short. Hard paths criss-crossed the area, and wide, square lakes of still black water, but there were no trees. Benfro looked around, tried to get his bearings. Somewhere near where he now stood Ynys Môn's jewels had fallen to the ground. He could see them in his mind's eye, tumbling down.

But that had been months ago. They surely wouldn't be here any more. One or other of the dragons would have found them, collected them up. Taken them where, though? Almost unbidden, his eyes looked up, following the climb of the buildings, their roofs topped with dark grey slate. Behind them the tower pierced the clouds, so tall that he could scarcely make out its top. And he knew with dreadful certainty exactly where he would find his old friend.

Benfro leaped into the air, beat down with his wings until he was aloft. In the dream it was all so easy. No need
to run and jump like some fledgling bird. No fear of broken bones or, worse, injured pride. Soon he was higher than the buildings, climbing strongly and swiftly. Still it took long minutes to cross the endless miles of dark roofs, the thousand thousand sightless window eyes. He was certain somebody was watching him, but scanning the skies revealed nothing. Wherever this place was, he was alone in it.

Climbing the tower in a spiral around its outer wall was hard work even in his dreaming state. It was almost as if some invisible force were pushing him away, but Benfro pressed on regardless. He had survived the thin air of Magog's retreat at the top of Mount Arnahi. Surely this tower could not be as high as the tallest mountain on the Rim? And anyway he was not here. Not really. He was back in the cave asleep. Or was he here after all? Was this real or some parallel plane?

Higher and higher he climbed, flying against what felt like a storm. The closer he came to the top, the harder the going. And then the pressure against him was gone, as if someone had closed a window. His last powerful wingbeat shot him up beyond the top of the tower so that he had to swoop around and dive back down. A wide balcony circled the entire structure, two large glass-paned doors opposite each other giving access to a room inside. Benfro had always been curious, and this was the most intriguing puzzle of them all. He was certain this was the lair of some great dragon mage. Perhaps it was Gog's own retreat.

Movement behind the glass panes caught his eye, and Benfro circled to land. There was a feeling to the place he couldn't quite describe. Peering through the nearest door,
he saw a room filled with huge tables, strange metal equipment, piles of wooden chests, things he had no names for. Hanging from a rafter off to one side, where it would be out of the draught from the door if it were open, a heavy cage appeared to be made of gold. Too small for a dragon, he couldn't see if anything was inside it, as the bars had been woven through with strips of cloth and blankets to form a den for whatever animal had been trapped inside. Or maybe not trapped; a long knotted rope draped down from the cage to the floor. Nearby, a huge fireplace glowed with the embers of a dying fire, and sitting in front of it was a tiny figure.

‘By the moon! It cannot be!'

Benfro whirled, almost toppling off the ledge. Above him, far too close for comfort, a huge dragon hung in the air as if suspended on an invisible rope. Darkest black, with just the faintest shimmer of colour to his scales like oil spread across the surface of a winter pool, he sparked a memory deep in Benfro's mind. This was one of the creatures who had attacked him before, when he had dropped Ynys Môn's jewels in his dreams. Could the others be far away?

The dragon seemed not to need to flap his wings to stay aloft, drew them together far too soon to land on the balcony and yet still glided gently to the stone. Benfro felt a great wave of anger and hatred boiling off the beast, for beast was surely what he was. No great dragon mage but a warrior, battle-scarred and mad with rage. Benfro backed away, feeling first his tail slip over the edge, then his heels. He could go no further without fleeing, and there was no way he could hope to outrun such a powerful creature.

‘How dare you sully this place with your presence?' The enormous dragon advanced ever closer, reaching out to him with powerful talons. The fear swamping Benfro was worse by far than anything Melyn and his warrior priests had ever produced in him. It froze him almost completely, just blind instinct making him flinch back as those claws whipped out and raked across his chest.

And then he was falling over the edge, tumbling out of control, a howl of rage and frustration ringing in his ears.

‘Beulah and Clun, they are still in Tochers?'

Melyn sat in Ballah's chair at the king's old desk, letting the Grym soothe away the pain that still flared across his chest with every intake of breath. He was suppressing the cough that wanted to shake loose the liquid pooling in his lungs, but there was only so long he could manage that for. Then the agony would overcome him once more. He cursed dragons of all kinds, Benfro in particular.

‘They are, Your Grace. I believe they are making preparations for the army to march out soon.'

Well, maybe not all dragons. Curled up beside the shuttered windows, Frecknock was a dark shadow in the gloom, only her large round eyes reflecting the waxy yellow candlelight.

‘I must speak with them. You will help me make contact.'

Frecknock raised her head to his eye level but remained lying down. ‘Sire, is that wise? You are not strong—'

‘You will do as I command, Frecknock.' Melyn felt the anger surging up in him and bit down hard on the cough that it wanted to bring with it.

‘Of course, sire.' The dragon rose in a lithe, fluid motion, crossed the room to where he sat, held out her hand. ‘If you would join me in the aethereal.'

Melyn swallowed against the bubbling in his throat and lungs, settled his mind as best he could and slipped into the trance. It brought a moment's relief to be apart from his physical body, but he knew that Frecknock spoke the truth. He was not healing because he was not resting. Just a pity he had to be injured so deep inside enemy territory and with so much to do.

‘Take my hand, sire. It will be quicker this way.' Frecknock's aethereal appearance was so much more magnificent than her drab, worldly self. Her voice had more self-confidence about it too, speaking directly to his mind. Melyn's mental defences were instinctive, and yet he knew that she would never try to take advantage of his weakened state. He reached out, feeling the warmth in her scaly palm, the strength she lent him so that he might be able to make the trip. And then with a blink, they were there.

Melyn knew Tochers from old. It was a miserable town, centred around a miserable castle with miserable, cold, dark rooms. Built to defend the pass from possible Llanwennog invasion, it was designed to be impregnable rather than comfortable. Not the best place for the heir to the Obsidian Throne to be born.

The room to which Frecknock had somehow instantly transported him was one of the more pleasant ones in the castle. It had two windows where most had barely an arrow slit, and a fire roared away merrily in a vast fireplace. The queen lay in a large four-poster bed, propped
up on pillows and cradling in her arms the tiniest baby Melyn had ever seen. There was a healthy glow to both mother and child though, which gave him heart. The queen's skill at magic was still hampered by her recent pregnancy, but it remained intact if she could be so easily recognized. The child, too, appeared fully formed, as children sometimes did, especially those of royal blood. Clun sat in a chair beside a large fireplace, but an image of him stood up, seeming to split into two people the instant Melyn turned to face him.

‘Your Grace. You look unwell.' Clun's aethereal self was indistinguishable from his mundane, save for the liminal glow around him. He was far more at ease in this place than most long-practised adepts, and not for the first time Melyn wondered how a country boy from the back end of nowhere could be so strong in the Grym. And yet he'd been a country boy from the back end of nowhere himself. All those years ago.

‘A little problem with the dragon Benfro. I'll live.' Melyn nodded towards Beulah, who was staring up at her husband now, still not seeing him. ‘You are a father, I see. Congratulations.'

‘A girl, yes. We have named her Ellyn, after her grandmother. She came earlier than we expected, but she is healthy enough.'

Melyn winced at the choice of name and the unbidden memories it raised like ghosts. He forced them away, concentrating on the present. ‘The queen? How fares Beulah?'

Clun appeared to consider his words. ‘It wasn't an easy birth, sire. And the queen has not yet come to terms with the change in her situation, I fear.'

‘You fear? Speak your mind, boy. This is the heir to the Obsidian Throne we're discussing.'

‘I'm sorry, Your Grace. I don't know how to … The queen … my lady has not taken to the child the way I would have expected a mother to. In truth she has scarcely moved from her bedchamber since she was born.'

‘It will pass. Her mother was the same with both Lleyn and Beulah, though less so with Iolwen. It would be best perhaps if she returned to Candlehall. I take it our armies are marching through the passes as we speak?'

Melyn could see the anxiety as a darkening of Clun's aura, and the pause before answering was enough to tell him all was not well.

‘Do I need to remind you we will soon be confronted by Prince Geraint's army?'

‘It's not that, sir. General Otheng should be through the Wrthol pass by now, and a smaller army is making its way to Tynewydd from here. Tordu's army was routed by a pair of dragons, so it's unlikely they will meet much resistance.'

‘Then what's the problem, boy?' Melyn's chest flared with pain, threatening to drag him back to his body.

‘It's Candlehall, sir. It's been taken by an army of Abervenn men, led by Prince Dafydd and Princess Iolwen.'

Melyn struggled to stay in the room in Tochers, that same grey mist he had encountered in Ballah's private apartments swirling around him. The pain in his chest was even more severe now; he could feel each breath as a wheeze, the liquid filling his lungs and threatening to drown him in his own blood. And then a hand touched his
shoulder, softly anchoring him, lending him the strength he needed to finish.

‘Damn that boy. I should have known. What are your plans?'

‘We will march as soon as the queen is able. The plan is to secure Abervenn first; it will have fewer men defending it. Duke Beylin and Duke Glas are sending reinforcements. Together we will take back Candlehall.'

Melyn coughed, and the pain came back double. Even Frecknock's strength was not enough, and he could sense himself losing control. Damn it, he had wanted to search the aethereal for Prince Geraint again. Their last foray had shown only that the army was leaving Wrthol. It could be halfway to Tynhelyg by now.

‘Beulah knows the secret ways into the Neuadd. Use that knowledge, Clun. And keep the queen safe.'

‘Always, Your Grace.' Clun bowed his head, clapped his arm across his chest in salute, but Melyn was already moving, hurtling backwards as if on a rope pulled behind a galloping horse. He could hear a voice muttering in Draigiaith, the words strangely soothing to his ears as he tensed for the inevitable bone-crushing impact as his aetheral self met his physical body in the worst possible way.