The Broken World (9 page)

‘I'm sorry, sir. I had to check something. I thought I felt a disturbance in the Grym, and I was right. There are warrior priests on board that ship, and look up at the castle – the flags flying.'

‘You've got better eyesight than me.' Dafydd squinted at the castle.

‘I didn't see them with my eyes, but that's not important. What matters is that you get out of sight before any loose-tongued fishermen see you. We can smuggle your party ashore after dark, but really I need to talk to Lady
Anwyn before we do anything. Damn, but this is inconvenient.'

‘What is it? I don't understand. I thought we'd be welcomed openly here.'

‘Normally you would, sir. But those warrior priests are not alone. They're here to guard the queen.'

The next few hours were nerve-racking. Dafydd sat on the edge of his cot in their cabin, staring at the darkness outside the porthole while Iolwen slept fitfully. Captain Pelod and his men had been forced to hide in the cargo hold with Teryll. Even Usel hid, his magic pulling him back into the shadows.

Finally, some time in the middle of the night, Dafydd heard a light knock at his cabin door. He rose and opened it, to find Anwyn standing there, Usel behind her.

‘Your Highness.' Anwyn curtsied.

Dafydd gestured for them to come in. ‘What's happening out there?'

‘They arrived a week ago, far earlier than expected. Beulah's been parading her consort around ever since, trying to drum up support for the new Duke of Abervenn.'

‘And is it working?'

‘I don't think so. Oh, the people shout and cheer, but only because they know what will happen if they don't.'

‘Anwyn? Is that you?' Iolwen's voice rose from the bed, and Dafydd turned to see her sitting up, clutching her swelling belly. Anwyn swept past him and went to her, kneeling on the floor.

‘Your Highness, it's good to see you. Are you well?'

‘As well as I could hope, given the circumstances. They say my sister's here. Are we safe?'

‘As safe as anyone can be, but don't worry. Queen Beulah and her party will be riding out in a day or two. They're heading for Tochers to review the army. I think she means to lead her men into battle herself, by the way she talks. And in her condition too.'

‘She's pregnant too?'

‘Some months gone now, but not as far as you. By the Shepherd, Iolwen. Look at the size of you.'

Dafydd tuned out the pregnancy talk, turning instead to Usel. ‘So we're going to be stuck on this boat until Beulah leaves?'

‘No, sir. There's a wagon waiting to take you and the princess up to the castle. It's such a huge old place you can have a whole tower to yourself and no one will be the wiser. It'll be a lot more comfortable than staying here. Ships are fine at sea, but a harbour's not a place to linger long.'

‘I'd noticed the stench. But what about my men? They can't very well ride through the town, can they?'

‘No. Nor can we unload their horses without drawing too much attention. Captain Azurea will put to sea again tomorrow; he has cargo to deliver further along the coast. Captain Pelod and his men will disembark at a beach about half a day's ride from here. I'll go with them and guide them back to the city. There's plenty of ways into Abervenn by land.'

‘Very well. When do we leave?' Dafydd glanced around at the cabin, suddenly keen to be gone from its confines.

It was Anwyn who answered: ‘Now might be good. I think Princess Iolwen's about to give birth.'

Melyn had taken to pacing the empty corridors of Gremmil Castle in the long hours he spent waiting for his scouts
to report back. Dondal's information had opened up a tantalizing possibility, but it needed confirmation from a more trustworthy source. Failing that, he wanted supporting stories from as many separate people as possible, and he needed a timescale. If the King's Festival was in the next few days, then there was no way he was going to be able to get to Tynhelyg and put his men in place. But if it wasn't for three weeks, he had a chance.

The castle was eerily quiet without the bustle of servants. It was an old building, much extended and renovated, but like the town walls a relic of past times. Llanwennog had a long history of civil war before the House of Ballah had finally united it. Places like Gremmil had survived many a siege and launched many an attack.

Melyn was musing on how much easier it would have been to take the word of the Shepherd to the people if the nobles had still been at war with each other when he rounded a corner and found Frecknock standing in the corridor, staring at the wall.

‘What are you doing here?' he asked, surprised more than angered. He no longer felt any need to keep her chained up. She immediately fell into her habitual crouch, dropping her eyes to the floor.

‘Please forgive me, Your Grace. I was studying the carvings.'

Melyn looked at the wall, noticing for the first time an elaborate frieze running the length of the corridor. To his surprise he recognized the story it depicted, though many of the figures had been crudely defaced.

‘Hah! This is the story of Balwen, when the Shepherd gave him the gift of magic so that he could look after the
whole of Gwlad. I've not seen such a fine representation outside Emmass Fawr.'

‘Is that what it is, Your Grace? I was wondering, what are those creatures in the middle panel? The ones that look like dragons.'

Melyn peered at the carving, then conjured up a ball of light to supplement the meagre illumination filtering through the grimy window on the far side of the corridor. Sure enough, in the fifth panel, where the Shepherd exhorted Balwen to look after all the creatures of Gwlad, there in the undergrowth were a pair of dragons.

‘An interesting heresy. Andro would be fascinated. Maybe when this war is over I'll have this removed and taken back to the monastery for him to study.' He ran his free hand over the stone, walking down the corridor until he reached the end of the tale. ‘But what is such a piece doing in a castle in godless Llanwennog? Unless …'

There was a door at the end of the corridor partly obscured by a pile of old furniture. Melyn shifted a few broken chairs until he could reach the latch, turned it and pushed. The door was either locked or set solid with years of neglect; either way it wouldn't move. Extinguishing his light, he slipped into his aethereal trance and checked the door for magical seals. The long-dead wood should have been a barrier even to his aethereal form, but it was strangely pliant, as if the room beyond were beckoning him. Sensing no danger, he stepped out of his physical body and floated slowly through.

To normal eyes it would have been too dark to see, but in the aethereal it was plain to Melyn that this was a long-disused chapel. There was an altar upon which still
stood a small golden image of the crook, along with two fat candles, their wax pooled and solidified on the stone. The ceiling vaulted high above a space big enough for at least fifty people, and low benches were arranged so that the devout could sit while they listened to passages from the scriptures. There was even a heavy leather-bound book lying closed on a lectern to one side of the altar, and Melyn itched to hold it in his hands, to read the words within.

It was obvious that the chapel had not been used for worship for many decades, if not centuries. What surprised him was not so much that it was here; Llanwennogs had been drawn to the true word in the past, though converts were persecuted ruthlessly under the rule of the House of Ballah. What was so unusual about this chapel was that it had neither been desecrated nor pressed into use as something else – a storeroom or dungeon perhaps. It appeared to have been just forgotten, as if the faithful had said their prayers then left with every intention of returning the following Suldith. It had not been sullied; it was still sacred ground, and Melyn could feel the presence of his god all around him.

He floated his aethereal form towards the altar, kneeling in front of it even though he couldn't feel the stone against his knees. It was a strangely detached way to pray, and yet it felt like the right thing to do, as if the Shepherd had called him here. Melyn tried to close his eyes, as he would have done in any other chapel, but in the aethereal to close his eyes was to surrender himself back to his physical body. Too late he felt himself falling back, and with a snap he was standing on the wrong side of the door again.

‘Ah, by the Wolf!' He thumped at the door, but it still wouldn't move.

‘Can I help, Your Grace?' Melyn turned to see Frecknock standing several paces back down the corridor, waiting patiently as she always did. This was no place for a dragon, and the sight of her brought a flush of anger that he swiftly suppressed. But maybe there was something she could do for him.

‘If you can move this junk and open the door, then you can be of service. If not, then get out of my way.'

‘I can try.' Frecknock grabbed a heavy oak refectory table with one hand and pulled it back as if it weighed no more than the chairs Melyn had moved. The noise it made on the flagstone floor was enough to convince him that it was just as heavy as it looked.

The rest of the stored furniture dragged aside, the dragon put her shoulder to the door. At first it didn't move, but then with a sound of snapping metal the hinges collapsed and the whole thing fell in. Dust billowed up, shooting out of the open doorway like an explosion. Melyn covered his mouth, coughing through the fabric of his cloak, and stepped inside.

He was instantly aware of the Shepherd in the way his whole body felt younger, lighter. He stepped towards the altar, and a shadow fell across the shaft of light falling in through the wrecked door. Melyn turned to see Frecknock peering into the chapel.

‘Get out! Get out! You must not sully this place with your presence!' He thrust the whole force of his will with the words, and the dragon sat back on her tail as if slapped. She backed quickly away, scolded, her hands held up in
supplication. And then Melyn heard a voice that swamped his anger, rode over any feeling other than purest joy even as it chided him.

‘Do not be so harsh on Frecknock, my servant. She has served you well so far.'

‘But my lord, she is a dragon, a creature of the Wolf.'

‘And as some of my creations have spurned me, might not his beasts turn from him? Did I not say you would find help in unexpected quarters as you pursued your quest?'

Melyn sank to his knees in the same spot where his aethereal form had settled just minutes earlier. He was humbled in the presence of his god, made to feel no better than the dribbling idiots who lived out their meaningless lives in the almshouses outside Emmass Fawr. His intellect was nothing, his skill at magic mere sleight of hand, his rise from abject poverty to the head of the most powerful order in the history of Gwlad a paltry achievement. He would have none of it without the Shepherd. And yet it troubled him that his god should be so capricious.

‘My lord, your wisdom knows no bounds. Please forgive me if I don't fully understand.'

‘You are my instrument, Melyn son of Arall. It is not necessary for the hammer to know why the carpenter wields it, only for it to strike the nail accurately and with as much force as possible.'

‘Of course, lord.' Melyn bowed his head yet further in supplication and received a dizzying flood of youthful energy as a reward for his humility.

‘You worry about the dragon's magic, I see. You fear that it is the Wolf's working and will corrupt your soul.
Fret not, my servant. You will know the Wolf when you see him. The magic Frecknock and her kind wield is my magic. Stolen from me when Gwlad was young, it's true. But it is my magic nonetheless. Do you think I would have let you use it otherwise? Do I not watch over you at all times?'

‘Lord, you are everywhere and in everything. I am honoured to be the instrument of your will. But I see the Wolf and his demons all around me, tempting me, trying to lead me astray. It has been too long since last I prayed to you. Please forgive me.'

‘You have much on your mind, my faithful servant. Perhaps you would have been wise to consult me sooner. You think Duke Dondal lied to you. You do not believe that Tynhelyg could be so poorly defended, King Ballah so vulnerable. But it is true. I have made it so.'

Melyn's heart surged at the words echoing in his head. His greatest triumph was within his reach, and he could not fail.

‘Ah, but you could all too easily fail, my faithful servant. King Ballah is a powerful sorcerer. He knows the evil magic of the Wolf, forged in his lair and alien to the power that runs through Gwlad. You will need all the help you can get just to reach Tynhelyg in time, and you will have to dig deep inside yourself to find the strength to defeat the Wolf's cub who lies there.'

‘I am ready to take up that challenge, lord. It is what I've trained for all my life.'

‘Yes, it is. And I have been preparing you all your life for this moment. You have Brynceri's ring with you. Take it. Place it on your own finger.'

‘But, lord. The ring is sacred. I …'

‘Are you forgetting to whom you speak, Melyn son of Arall? I forged that ring from my own breath. I gave it to Balwen so that he might protect Gwlad in my absence. It contains magic you cannot imagine. Wear it!'

Melyn felt the command as the merest hint of the agony that refusing would bring. He reached into his cloak and pulled out the slim wooden case, fumbling with the latch as he tried to open it. His hands shook as he removed the dry grey finger from its soft velvet nest. The ring hung loosely around it, the bright red polished ruby lit from within by a tiny spark that shimmered and flickered. It was the most sacred relic of the order. Only the inquisitor was allowed to handle it, and no one had worn it since Ruthin had cut it from the belly of the dead dragon Maddau. To do so had been unthinkable until now.

‘Put it on, Melyn son of Arall, and feel the power of your god.' The Shepherd's voice was all around him, filling him with the certainty that what he did was right. Melyn slid the ring off the dead finger, scarcely noticing that he dropped it to the floor like a discarded chicken bone. He could feel the ring calling to him now; it was warm in his hand and almost leaped on to his outstretched finger.

It fitted perfectly, as if it had been made for him. Or he had been made for it. And as it snuggled down over his knuckle, the tiny flicker in the ruby blazed bright so that the whole chapel was painted rose. At the same time Melyn was suffused with a surge of such power and joy he felt he must surely die. The relief from aches and pains the Shepherd had given him before was as
nothing compared to the strength and vitality that surged through him. It was as if he were twenty again, only better.

And then Gwlad opened up to him. His eyes were closed, but he could see the Grym linking everything. And on top of it he could see the aethereal. He could see the altar in front of him, but at the same time he could count the benches laid out behind him. He could even see Frecknock sitting in the corridor outside, waiting for him. But she was a different creature to the dull black shrunken figure he normally saw. Her aethereal image, with its elegant scales and large wings, fitted over her physical self so perfectly it was impossible to see where the real dragon ended and the imaginary one began. She shone with a white light, limning her outline like a halo and radiating a calm patience, a purposeful determination to do the best with whatever fate dealt her.

The flood of information was overwhelming: there was too much to process, too much power flowing through him. It was like conjuring a blade of fire and then losing control of it; he would surely burn up. But he knew how to control the Grym. Decades of mental discipline pushed their way to the fore, and Melyn slowly regained control of himself. He willed away the aethereal vision, then the softly glowing lines of the Grym, pushing everything back into the glowing red jewel burning in its band of silver and gold.