The Broken World (43 page)

‘Where …?'

‘They will be well, Sir Benfro. Do not worry for them. Time is of the essence though. I have felt something move in this land that should not be here. You must hurry or we may all fail.'

‘I don't understand.' Benfro watched as a line in the trunk split open to reveal a narrow tunnel, rapidly widening. Soft green light spilled out, and he remembered his first encounter with the tree.

‘Your wings are still not healed enough to carry you. This is a quicker way to Gog's castle. The last I saw him, the boy Errol was heading that way too. There is something there of great value to him.'

‘I should thank Earith and Malkin.' Benfro paused at the tunnel entrance. Looked back. He could see nothing in the gloomy darkness of the canopy.

‘They do not think you rude to leave so, and neither do I. Go, Benfro. Find your friend. Together you can undo this terrible wrong.'

Whether there was some compulsion in the words of the mother tree or not, Benfro couldn't tell, but in the end they were not necessary. He could not stay in Pallestre with Earith, could not linger with the mother tree no matter how much he wanted to. He was healed, apart from his eye, and he could see well enough. It was time now to restart his quest. Nodding his head in silent thanks, he stepped into the tunnel.

Thick black smoke spiralled in the air, making some streets all but impassable as Beulah rode through the remains of Abervenn and down to the seafront. She had spent the
night sleeping fitfully between bouts of feeding young Ellyn, her dreams invaded by the screams of the dying as the second-largest city in her realm was put to fire and the sword. For too many years Abervenn had been a thorn in the side of the House of Balwen, a place whose citizens looked to the sea and the whole of Gwlad rather than to Candlehall and their rightful ruler. Now it was time to cleanse it and start afresh.

‘This is a sad day, Your Majesty.' Captain Celtin rode alongside the queen, a guard of two dozen mounted warrior priests surrounding them and scouting ahead for any potential trouble. So far they hadn't seen a living soul. Not even a cat or dog.

‘Sentimental, Captain? You're not an Abervenn man, are you?'

‘No, ma'am. Emmass Fawr is my home, and the order is my family. This purge was necessary, but it still pains me to see such destruction.'

Beulah didn't reply. He had a point, after all. They should have been putting Wrthol and Tynewydd to the torch, not their own back yard. And after Abervenn, what would she have to do to Candlehall?'

‘Your Majesty, it is good to see you well.'

They had reached the docks, where a large number of ships were moored, unloading an even larger number of men and equipment. Lord Beylin had been allowed to approach through the circle of warrior priests and knelt on one knee in front of the queen's horse.

‘Looks like you arrived in the nick of time, Beylin. I don't suppose you've seen my husband anywhere in this mayhem?'

‘His Grace the Duke of Abervenn is up at the castle.' Lord Beylin rose, looking up in the direction of the smoking, blackened towers.

‘Has he found my sister yet?'

A dark frown spread across Beylin's face. ‘She is nowhere to be found, ma'am. The Lady Anwyn is not here either. Only the dowager duchess, old Lady Dilyth.'

‘She still lives?'

‘As I understand it, yes. The duke had her taken to the barracks. He intends to interrogate her himself once he has finished searching the castle. I believe he has certain skills in that area.'

Beulah allowed herself a small smile. Lord Beylin had no skill at magic himself and was uncomfortable around those who did. No doubt Clun had been completely oblivious as he told his ally how he intended to conduct his search. The smile was short-lived though. Iolwen had escaped, of that Beulah was sure.

‘Accompany me, Beylin. I will speak with Lady Dilyth myself.'

Lord Beylin bowed, then turned and shouted to a group of men at the quayside. Within moments his horse was being led through the crowd. Mounted, he fell in beside the queen and together they headed towards the Kingsgate and the barracks.

‘I was delighted to hear of the safe delivery of your daughter, ma'am. You must be overjoyed.'

Beulah stared at Lord Beylin. On the face of it, the question was innocent enough, but it irritated her nonetheless. What was it that had changed in her that he felt he could be so familiar? Was it that he had brought men and
ships to aid in the retaking of Candlehall? Was it that they had met once before, shared a few meals together? That she had once used his first name to address him? Or was it that the very act of giving birth made her a woman first in his eyes, queen second? She had a suspicion it was this last one, and that annoyed her more than the familiarity itself.

‘How went the battle?' she asked, pleased to see Beylin stiffen as he heard the rebuke in her tone. He rallied quickly though; the man was all charm.

‘Better than I could have hoped. We sustained minimal casualties, and only a handful of ships slipped through our blockade.' Beylin frowned again, as if this was a personal insult to his skills. ‘Your husband is a cunning strategist, ma'am. I don't know who he studied warfare under, but the man is a genius.'

‘Clun claims he learned everything he knows about warfare from playing games with the other boys in his village.' Beulah smiled at the thought of all those learned generals with their maps and strategies, pitted against someone who had spent long summers trying to capture another boy's hideout in the woods. ‘I suspect he may have picked up one or two things at Emmass Fawr, though.'

Lord Beylin said nothing to this, and they soon arrived at the barracks. A commotion at the far end of the parade ground turned out to be the great Gomoran stallion Godric. The beast had been left untethered, as was Clun's usual practice. Normally it would stand stock still until its master returned, moving only to threaten anyone who came too close, but now it was prancing around in a circle, throwing its head this way and that as if battling faeries.

‘Your Majesty. Perhaps it would be best if we kept our distance.' Lord Beylin reined in his own horse a good distance from the stallion, but Beulah pressed on, her filly more excited than fearful. Too late she remembered that it was probably coming into heat.

It made no difference. The stallion was far too caught up in whatever strange battle it was fighting to notice. Beulah watched it as she came closer, beginning to see a pattern to its dance. And then she remembered a cell deep underneath the castle in Beylinstown, a mad predicant by the name of Father Tolley who had managed to hide himself in plain sight. Relaxing gently into the aethereal trance, she saw the scene differently. The stallion still pranced, even more magnificent in this plane, if that were possible, but its movements made sense now, darting and kicking out at another figure. A young man Beulah didn't recognize and yet who had such a strong aethereal presence she could see his features as clearly as she saw Clun's. He was too preoccupied with the horse to notice her, concentrating on not having his head caved in by one of those massive hooves.

Dismounting from her horse, Beulah glided across in her aethereal form. At her approach, the stallion calmed, settling to just a nervous pacing back and forth. The young man, sensing his opportunity, darted to the side, bringing him right in front of Beulah's aethereal self. Only then did he seem to notice her, too late to defend himself. She reached out to his mind, unguarded in his moment of surprise, and turned it off.

‘Your Majesty. Are you all right?'

The words were the first thing she heard as she returned
to her body, slumping in the saddle as the inevitable weariness hit her. Shrugging it off, Beulah dismounted, ignoring Lord Beylin's concern as she marched towards the great stallion, now standing perfectly still, its head down and breathing heavily over the prostrate form of a young man dressed all in black.

‘My thanks, Godric. That's another one I owe you.' Beulah held her hand out to the beast and it dipped its head to her before scraping a hoof against the hard-packed ground and shaking in triumph.

‘Secure this man. Keep him sedated.' Beulah shouted the command to the warrior priests guarding her, none of whom seemed all that keen to get too close to the horse.

Finally Captain Celtin shouldered his way through, marching up with a good impression of fearlessness even though his regular glances at the stallion gainsaid his confidence. He rolled the unconscious man over, pulling his arms behind his back.

‘See he is brought with the army to Candlehall,' Beulah said. ‘I will interrogate him once we have taken the city and I have my throne back. I grow tired of these so-called Guardians and their secrets.'

Melyn had only taken a few steps across the smooth floor towards the nearest alcoves and their collections of jewels before Frecknock called out to him: ‘Your Grace. You must not touch them. It is not safe.'

He looked back to see the dragon standing on the bottom step of the staircase as if she didn't dare trust herself to the floor.

‘Do not worry, Frecknock. I have handled many dragon jewels before.'

‘But these are unreckoned. Raw. To touch them is to bind oneself to the poor beast from whom they have been taken. Why have they not been reckoned? Why are they all separated like this?'

‘Why do you think men have hunted dragons all these centuries, millennia? For their jewels and the power that lies within them, of course.' Melyn walked up to the nearest alcove and took one ruby-red jewel out. It was as big as a hen's egg, but jagged on the edges. It pulsed with a life of its own, random thoughts and feelings jumbled together. True, someone with no skill or training might be entranced by the whirling images, the sensation of flying or deep ecstasy a dragon's jewel could bring, but he knew how to block those parts and concentrate on the raw Grym that flowed through it.

Frecknock finally committed herself to the floor. ‘This place is the work of men?' She stepped as lightly as Melyn had ever seen across the shiny, polished marble and peered at the alcoves from a healthy distance. He could feel the fear boiling off her, but it was a different flavour to the terror-panic that she had shown around him and the warrior priests during the early days of her capture. This was a deeper fear, something in her bones. It unsettled him that she could feel this way here.

‘Does it upset you, to see this?'

For a moment Frecknock didn't answer, and Melyn had the distinct impression she hadn't heard him. Then she turned away from the alcoves, making sure no part of her body, not even her tail, came within more than a wide pace of the stone pillars.

‘It is the most horrific thing I have ever seen. Imagine,
if you will, coming across a hall piled high with the bones of your warrior priests. Knowing that they had all died a slow, terrible death and yet were still in some manner alive. This … This is a hundred times worse.'

Melyn placed the jewel back in its alcove, feeling a fleeting sense of panic as he released it. He had handled hundreds, thousands of dragon jewels in his lifetime, but something of Frecknock's fear rubbed off on him then. He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

‘This place is a focus for the Grym, nothing more. The dragons who gave up these jewels are long dead. You have nothing to fear from them.'

Frecknock had turned back to the steps and was looking up at the massive black pillar around which they wrapped. Melyn noticed for the first time the inscriptions carved in its surface, recognized something of the language and the story they told. He had seen something similar out in the northlands, he realized. That old disused chapel in Lord Gremmil's castle. The godless Llanwennogs might have taken over this place, corrupted it to the ways of the Wolf, but it had once been a shrine to the Shepherd. No, more than that. His god had once lived in this place. He was sure of it.

‘King Ballah's ring. You have it with you?'

Frecknock looked startled for a moment, then went to the bag she had slung over one shoulder. It had the Llfyr Draconius in it as well as the various magical artefacts that had been found in the palace after Ballah's death. Melyn didn't like to admit it, but he felt they were safer in her keeping than entrusted to any warrior priest. The temptation in them was too great, let alone the
myriad curses and enchantments weaved around each one.

‘I have it here, sire.' The dragon held out the small box. ‘I studied it as you asked. It is a thing of great power, but it is inert as if whatever lies within it is asleep or dead. I cannot fathom it, but I sense no more danger in it than the one you wore before.'

Melyn reached into the pocket of his robe, taking out the velvet bag in which he had placed Balwen's ring. Wearing it for any length of time left him weary, though the power it gave him was intoxicating. Without knowing quite why, he slipped it on to his left ring finger. As he did so the whispering of a thousand thousand voices, the dead dragons entombed in this giant repository, rose up like the threat of a storm. It should have been disquieting but instead was quite the opposite. He knew that all these lives were his, all their knowledge just waiting to be used.

As he reached for the second ring, presented in its tiny wooden box, Melyn noticed his hand trembling slightly. He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether he should continue. But the Shepherd had told him, even as he had healed the wounds on his chest, given him the vigour of a twenty-year-old. This ring was his to command too. And who was he to second-guess the great plan of his god? Soon the Shepherd would return to Gwlad in his true physical form. Melyn wanted nothing more than to be there to greet him.

A shudder ran through him as he took out the ring, raised it close to his eyes so he could study it more clearly. It was so very much like King Balwen's own, gifted to him by the Shepherd, passed down to Brynceri and cut from
the belly of the dragon Maddau when it had finally been slain by Ruthin. Had the Shepherd favoured others as well? It made sense, perhaps. If Balwen's task was to unite the Twin Kingdoms, then maybe another had been charged with taking his word to the north. Another who had plainly failed at some point.

Clasping Ballah's ring in his right hand, Melyn felt the familiar touch of his god, and with it came a better understanding of the writings on the great central pillar. The story was familiar, but the arrangement of the writing, more like runes than letters, hinted at something else. Something hidden deep within the pillar itself.

And then he saw it. Encased in the very living rock, protected by a spell woven into the words. The source of all knowledge, the heart of the Shepherd himself.

‘Your Grace—'

‘Silence, Frecknock. I know what I am doing. I know why I was called to this place.'

Melyn took King Ballah's ring, slipping it on to his finger on the opposite hand to King Balwen's. At that moment the pillar shimmered in front of his eyes, the stone seeming to melt and flow as the heart of the Shepherd oozed through the rock towards him. He reached out, cupping both hands to receive it. As it neared, so the fiery red glow of it grew brighter, matched by the light of the two rings. The blaze was so intense, Melyn had to close his eyes. The heat felt as if it would sear away his skin, but there was no pain. Only the joy of being at one with God. The whole cavern hummed with a low noise like the distant murmured singing of a thousand-strong choir. Ten thousand strong.

As the heart of the Shepherd fell into his hands, he sank to his knees under the weight of it, felt the power surge through him in ever-growing waves. He understood so much, knew so much, remembered so much. The memories of his childhood came flooding back: the great castle with its endless, enormous corridors; the winding stairs to the top of the tower where the likes of him were not supposed to go; the room with its massive windows opening out on to a wide balcony so high up in the sky you could almost believe you were flying; the ancient dragon, so big he scarce seemed to fit in the room, patiently explaining the wonders of the Grym and the subtle arts. Thoughts and images tumbled through Melyn's mind as if it were not him thinking them so much as someone else picking through it all, trying to find out what made him tick. For a moment he understood what Errol must have felt like when he had his memories altered, only Melyn didn't have the luxury of wine to dull his senses.

It all coalesced into a single word, a name, a pinprick point of hatred so intense it could have shattered a mountain. Melyn forced open his eyes as the word escaped from him in a ragged shout. He saw there the truth of it all. And the lie.

‘Gog!'

Lady Dilyth of Abervenn had seen better days. Beulah knew a little of her history; the girl who had fled Tynhelyg when her father's family had fallen out of favour with the young King Ballah. Distant cousins of the king, they had embraced the House of Balwen, bringing both court secrets and invaluable trading links with them, and the
young Dilyth had found love in the arms of Angor, heir to the duchy of Abervenn. In another world Beulah might have admired her, might have sought her advice on matters of state. She was a strong woman in a world dominated by men, after all. And she had been a good ruler; that much was obvious from the way the people of Abervenn had rallied behind her in their act of mass treason. In another world they might have been friends.

In this world she was a woman nearing her end, and she knew it. She was dressed much more simply than a duchess might be expected to, dowager or otherwise. Her long skirts and dark blouse were the sort of thing the serving women wore, as were her heavy leather boots, speckled with mud and ash. Her old face was creased and blackened with smoke, and there was a swelling around one eye that suggested her capture hadn't been entirely without a struggle. She sat on a stout wooden chair in one of the smaller barrack rooms, no doubt an officer's quarters if the quality of the furnishings was anything to go by. She wasn't bound though; all the fight gone from her.

‘Where is Princess Iolwen? Is Lady Anwyn with her?' Beulah stood back in the shadows as her husband asked the questions, probing gently with her mind to see what Lady Dilyth's thoughts betrayed. So far not much; the woman had formidable mental strength and knew how to block out an enemy.

‘A very long way from here, Clun Defaid. Both of them.' Lady Dilyth still spoke with a Llanwennog accent, even after all these years. Or maybe she was laying it on thick to annoy Beulah.

‘What did you hope to achieve? Inviting Iolwen back here, kidnapping my daughter?'

At this last question Dilyth's guard dropped. Just for an instant, and not long enough for Beulah to sense anything more than a brief flash of surprise. But it was enough.

‘She knew nothing about that. I'm guessing she knows nothing about the Guardians of the Throne either.' Beulah came out of the darkness, pulled a chair away from the table in front of the duchess and sat down.

‘Oh, I know a great deal about the Guardians, false queen. I just never held much by their prattling nonsense. The Shepherd is a myth, an invention to keep the simple people in line. He's no more coming back to claim his throne than I'm walking from this room alive.'

Beulah had to admit she was impressed. Lady Dilyth was perfectly calm, resigned to her fate. But then she was an old woman; her husband was dead, her son too. Only her daughter remained and was in all probability just as far away as she said. Her heresy was perhaps understandable, Llanwennogs were notoriously godless anyway. Her plain speaking was probably just a means to hasten her end, and the old Beulah would have happily cut off the woman's head for her words. But the old Beulah was gone. Her impetuousness with her.

‘So tell me about these Guardians then. Since you're such an expert.'

Lady Dilyth peered through puffy eyes, pausing a moment before deciding to speak. ‘You know of Mad Goronwy, I take it?'

‘I've read one or two of her doggerel poems, yes,' Beulah conceded.

‘You're the cuckoo child in a nest of thieves. At least that's what they say. You should be honoured. Not many people get a poem written about them.'

‘Who say? I thought you had nothing to do with them.'

‘They come and go. Usually Rams, but the occasional Candle. Never a warrior priest or quaister of the High Ffrydd though. Melyn always was good at maintaining discipline.'

‘They know the truth. The Shepherd walks among us. Most are just too blind to see him.' Clun's voice was tight, and Beulah could see he was rising to the bait Lady Dilyth was laying.

‘Ah yes. A true believer. You have him well trained, Your Majesty.'

‘His Grace the Duke of Abervenn has felt the touch of the Shepherd. He does not have to believe any more.'

‘Oh, I don't doubt Master Defaid has felt the touch of something. Candlehall is full of strange magics. But your precious Shepherd? I doubt it.'

Beside her, Beulah felt Clun tense and then relax. ‘You seek to taunt me with disrespect for my title, Lady Dilyth,' he said after a while. ‘But all you are doing is reminding me I wasn't born to it. It was a gift from my queen.'