The Broken World, page 25
‘What happened to your ma and da?’
‘You trying to change the subject?’ Nellore asked.
‘Maybe. A bit. Not sure I want to talk about where I came from. Least not until I’ve worked out where I am.’
‘Fair enough. Ma died when I was little. Don’t remember her much any more. Da was sacrifice last year. He’s with the gods now.’
Something about the matter-of-fact way Nellore spoke the words lessened their immediate impact. It took Errol a moment to process them and realize that he didn’t understand what they meant. He opened his mouth to ask, but both of them were distracted as a scream shattered the morning quiet. It went on far longer than any scream should, fading into a gurgling moan.
‘What in Gwlad …?’ Errol stood up, scanning the track in the direction of the noise, but Nellore was already up and running. He hurried after her, catching up only as she rounded the end of a two-storey stone house and darted down the passageway between it and the next building. Past the two of them, he could see a small scrubby orchard, a ladder propped up against one of the trees.
‘Hammie! Hammie! Oh no,’ Nellore shouted as she ran towards the ladder. As Errol followed he could see what had happened all too easily. Hammie he assumed to be the man with the ladder, who had obviously been picking fruit from the trees. They weren’t all that tall, but the topmost branches were far enough from the ground that falling from one could only end badly. A heavy branch lay alongside the prone man, still laden with bulbous pink fruits. A white smear of wood showed where the branch had snapped and, looking up, Errol could see a corresponding tear near the top of the tree.
‘He’s not breathing. Errol, help!’ Nellore was kneeling beside the man now, her head to his chest as she listened for a heartbeat. His legs were twisted badly underneath him, but at least Hammie’s neck didn’t seem broken. Not from where Errol was, at least.
‘Let me get close,’ he said as he knelt alongside Nellore. All the medicine and herb lore his mother had taught him slotted into place as he set about checking the man over. He was breathing, barely, and his pulse fluttered weakly. A quick look at his eyes showed he was out cold, no response to fingers prising open the lids at all.
‘OK. Let’s have a closer look at the damage, shall we?’ Errol sat back on his haunches and tried to find the half-trance that would let him see the aethereal. He wished Benfro were here; the dragon was far more adept at healing than he ever would be. The simple fact that Errol could walk was testament to that. But that was wishful thinking. Benfro was gone, either still back in Tynhelyg and dead at Melyn’s hand, or fled to who knew where. Errol concentrated, scrunching his eyes up for a moment. Then he relaxed and opened himself up to the Grym.
The man lay beside him, a riot of violent oranges and reds swirling about his lower body and legs. His head was a dark blue, cold and dying. Errol looked closer and saw the patterns of the fractures, the spread of shock as it pushed its fingers through vital organs. Slowly, methodically, shutting them down. He was going to die. Unless …
Errol looked for the lines of the Grym, seeing them everywhere. He reached out for the nearest, pulling the force into him as he would have done back at Emmass Fawr to keep warm. But instead of letting the heat flow through his own body, he directed it into the injured man, paying most attention to the areas where shock was threatening to overwhelm him.
It was a long, hard struggle, maintaining his concentration against a multitude of distractions. Errol was dimly aware of more people arriving at the scene, of Nellore leaving his side. A tiny part of him thanked her for understanding what he was doing and making sure he had the space to do it. Most of him was locked into the task of saving the injured man’s life.
Slowly, agonizingly, the shock retreated under the assault of the Grym, something akin to health returning to the man’s organs. Errol shifted his focus to the injuries. There was nothing he could do about the major fractures, but he could see numerous sites of internal bleeding, tiny little cuts and tears that would nonetheless prove fatal if not dealt with. At first he was unsure how the Grym could help, but just concentrating it on the individual points seemed to do the trick. One by one the wounds healed, the blood staunched. There was still the small matter of badly broken legs, but that was something he could deal with in the mundane.
‘I think he’s going to be OK,’ Errol said as he let the trance slip and looked down once more at the prone form of the man. He was younger than Errol had first thought, probably not much older than he was himself. His face was slack in unconsciousness, straggly brown hair almost covering his eyes. He wore a rough tunic not unlike the one Nellore had, or the one Errol had found waiting for him on the chair by his bed in Murta’s house when he’d woken. Most of the villagers wore very similar cloth. Not quite a uniform, but lacking the individuality of even the poorest inhabitants of Pwllpeiran where he’d grown up.
‘What … What did you do? I thought he was dead.’
Errol tried to get up, but his legs didn’t want to comply. A wave of weariness swept over him, the blood rushing from his head as if he were a bottle and someone had pulled out the stopper. He barely had the energy to turn away from the prone man as he fell forward, the last thing he saw as the blackness claimed him the sight of twenty or more villagers staring at him, each face a picture of disbelief.
Melyn slumped into his chair – King Ballah’s chair – and focused again on the Grym. Its warmth seeped through him, washing away the worst of the pain, but it could do nothing for the weariness that pulled at his senses. A stack of reports lay in front of him, but he had no appetite for reading. He preferred to sit, letting the Grym work its slow healing on him. The bed in the other room was more comfortable, but he had never placed much faith in comfort. And it was all but impossible to maintain the respect of your men from a sickbed.
‘Your Grace. You should not be doing so much. The wound will take longer to heal.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Melyn turned too swiftly to glare at the dragon and immediately regretted it.
‘I will help you back to your bed,’ she said, taking a step towards him. He held up a hand to stop her and she obeyed like a well-trained dog.
‘No. I won’t be going back to bed just now. There is too much to do. You can help me though. You and this book of yours.’ Melyn put a hand on top of the Llyfr Draconius, feeling the surging magics within.
‘The book?’ Frecknock tried to sound nonchalant, as if it were no great thing, but Melyn could see the hunger in her eyes.
‘Yes, the book. And this ring. These are things of great magical power. They help to focus the Grym and to anchor me in the aethereal. I need all the help I can get for what I must do.’ Melyn picked up the box containing Brynceri’s ring and opened it. The gem set in the slim silver band was dark and lifeless, but he could sense the power coiled in it, waiting. He recalled the thrill he had felt on first wearing it, how it had aided him and his small army as they took Tynhelyg and cut off the head of the House of Ballah. With it he had reached out across Gwlad with but a thought, pulled Clun’s aethereal self from him as if it were no more than a coat. It had been intoxicating to wield such power, but it had come at a cost. He would not fall into that trap so easily again. ‘I would use Ballah’s throne too, but I don’t think I can handle it at the moment.’
‘You are going to contact Master Clun?’ Frecknock asked.
‘That much I should be able to manage, and it approaches the time when he should be waiting for me.’ Melyn breathed heavily through the pain in his chest. At least the blood wasn’t bubbling in his lungs, although how long that would last he couldn’t be sure. ‘But first I must see if I can find Prince Geraint and his army, and that will take far more effort. Far more skill. And your help.’
Melyn found it hard to read expressions on the dragon’s face. It was such an alien thing, all scales and unexpected angles. But her eyes showed her surprise at his request, and they showed something else too. There was a pride there, a happiness that she was valued, of use. A well-trained dog indeed, she would follow her master wherever he bade her go.
She stepped up beside him, taking his hand as he requested. Hers was warmer to the touch than he expected – that always took him by surprise. He felt the energy in her, stronger even than the Grym he tapped from the lines crossing beneath his chair. Melyn settled himself as best he could, shutting out the pain and discomfort, letting his mind slip into the trance state. It took longer than normal, but he pushed back his anger and frustration. No one could be expected to sustain injuries like his and hope to enter the aethereal easily.
When he did find the trance, it was not as he expected. At Emmass Fawr his small rooms or Brynceri’s chapel always appeared much as they did in the mundane. The Neuadd was if anything even more magnificent when seen with the mind’s eye. In contrast, Ballah’s reception room, bedchamber and other apartments disappeared into a grey mist as if they had never been there. The grey continued in all directions, uniform and unchanging. There was only the throne, as far away from him as it would be were he still sitting at Ballah’s desk. Melyn started towards it, but a hand on his arm stopped him.
‘Your Grace, this is not what it seems.’
Melyn looked around and then up at the face of Frecknock. She was bigger here in the aethereal. Bigger even than she had appeared when she had helped him contact Clun across the maelstrom of unravelling magics that was the forest of the Ffrydd. Her dull grey and black scales had gone, replaced by striking hues of iridescent purple. Even her eyes were flecked with gold, rather than the blank, lifeless black he was used to. But it was her wings that were most noticeable: folded by her sides, they towered over her head in the same way that Benfro’s had. This, Melyn realized, was how Frecknock saw herself now. Not the pathetic, downtrodden thing that inhabited the mundane world. Here she had power and purpose. Here she was growing as her fear eased and her self-confidence grew. Despite himself he couldn’t help thinking he preferred her that way.
‘It would appear that King Ballah has left behind many enchantments, sire. Traps for the unwary. I’ve no doubt that were you not so sorely injured you would have seen them immediately.’
Melyn concentrated, remembering the layout of the room he was sitting in. Slowly, the grey fog began to roll away, revealing the structure of the palace, the dull life-glows of the people moving around in it and the more focused and certain self-images of the animals.
‘The throne is there to attract attention,’ Frecknock said. ‘It sits on a disturbance of the Grym the likes of which I have only ever seen once before. To go there unprepared would be to lose oneself completely.’
‘A cunning trap for any who would try to use the king’s power for themselves. Truly, Ballah was a skilled mage.’ Melyn composed himself before allowing his aethereal double to rise from the chair. ‘But tell me, where else have you seen such a disturbance?’
‘In the great hall of the Neuadd, sire. I couldn’t help noticing it when I was presented to Her Majesty. When the assassin came for her, I used the subtle arts to stop him from escaping. The Grym flows so strongly through the throne that I very nearly killed him in the process when all I had intended was to confuse his mind.’
Melyn looked back in the direction of Ballah’s throne, but the walls of the palace had reasserted themselves and he could no longer see it. He could feel it though, any adept worthy of the name would have been able to feel it. And Frecknock was right, it had the flavour of the Obsidian Throne about it. But that was a mystery for another time. Now he had other more pressing things to attend to.
‘Can you sense the Duke of Abervenn?’ he asked. Frecknock stretched her slender neck, raising her head high and sniffing at the air like a dog. Her scales glistened in the strange light of the aethereal.
‘He is at Tochers, sire. Would you like me to contact him?’
‘He is with the queen?’
‘Yes. And another. She has given birth.’
A child, an heir. Melyn almost slipped out of his aethereal trance at the news, catching himself at the last minute. ‘Can you take me to them?’
‘Of course, sire. Now?’
Melyn considered it. He would like to see them, and there was much to discuss. But the whereabouts of Prince Geraint was more pressing.
‘No. We will contact them later. Reconnaissance first. Help me find the Llanwennog army.’
Frecknock nodded and held out her hand again. Melyn took it, feeling the warmth and the silky texture of those tiny scales that covered her palms. There was a moment’s sensation of incredible speed, the room blurring from his aethereal vision, and then they were somewhere else altogether.
17
A dragon’s true place is in the air. Yes, she is master of the ground, the mundane and aethereal planes, the Grym and the subtle arts. All these are hers to command, but it is on the wing that she will show her true mettle. Should you wish to know the true measure of a dragon, then study her in flight. Some will seek to batter the air into submission, to conquer it by main force with no thought as to how it might react to the onslaught. Such a beast will be the same in other walks of life and would make an unsuitable companion for all but the most foolhardy.
Likewise a timid dragon in the air will be a timid dragon on the ground. Too scared to climb above the greatest mountains, to battle with storms or swoop through the narrowest of passes, too scared to press the case in an argument or defend those unable to defend themselves.
And as for those who are clumsy and graceless in the air, well they are the worst. For they betray all that it means to be a dragon.
Maddau the Wise, An Etiquette
‘Don’t think I’ve seen anything like it. Even a hatchling knows better than to trip over its own feet landing.’
Benfro sat uncomfortably towards the back of the largest group of dragons he had ever seen, listening as Fflint and his young friends laughed and joked about the new arrival as if he weren’t within earshot. His arm throbbed in time to his hearts, the tiny regrowing hand bruised and painful where he’d banged it on the ground in his pathetic attempt at landing. Darkness had fallen, the sky overhead pinpricked with a familiar constellation of stars. Or at least he thought they were familiar. Some seemed to be in the wrong place though. Not for the first time he wished Ynys Môn were with him. The old dragon had known the secrets of the night sky like no other. Where was he? What had become of his jewels? Benfro wished he had the strength to find out, but in truth he barely had enough to eat.
‘They call him Benfro of the Borrowed Wings. I can see why. I suspect he’s never flown more than a few yards before.’
This from one of the other young dragons in Fflint’s gang. Torquil or Tormod, he couldn’t be sure which. Benfro hadn’t been here long, but it was enough to start understanding the dynamics of the group. Fflint was clearly the biggest and strongest, and the others looked up to him. At least the young ones did. Even Cerys was there at the front, close to the fire they had lit to roast whole deer carcasses on. There were other dragons, older and perhaps wiser, who didn’t hang on his every word though. They took their meat off into the darkness, retreating to their own families perhaps, or just wanting to be alone.
‘Don’t mind them. They’re just posturing. Fflint’s been throwing his weight around ever since his father disappeared.’
Benfro looked up to see an old dragon standing nearby. He’d been so wrapped up in his thoughts, his misery if he was being truthful, that the great creature had managed to get right alongside unnoticed.
‘I’ve had worse,’ he said, remembering the countless times Frecknock had mocked him to his face, and that fateful spell she had cast on him.
‘I don’t doubt it. You are young, Benfro of the Borrowed Wings, but you have seen more than your years would suggest.’ The old dragon sat down beside him, curling his tail around his feet and letting out a long sigh of relief that reminded Benfro so much of Sir Frynwy that he almost laughed.
‘I am Sir Gwair,’ the old dragon said once he had finally settled himself. ‘Although any family I might have had have long since gone. “Sir” is not so much of an honorific when you have no kin.’
‘Is this not your family then?’ Benfro spread his arms wide to encompass the gathering, then winced in pain.
‘This lot? No. Well, there may be some distant cousins, I suppose. Go back far enough and we’re all related. All descendants of the Old One. But none of these dragons are my family.’ Sir Gwair laughed mirthlessly. ‘And they are all the family I have.’
‘What happened?’ Benfro wasn’t sure whether he should ask but didn’t really know what else to say.
‘Oh, they got old, they died. It happens even to us. Well, most of us.’
‘Most of us?’
‘The Old One’s still alive, and he was ancient when I was a kitling. Nobody knows how old he is. How long he’s lived up in the castle. But nobody remembers a time when he wasn’t there, either. You’d know that, of course.’
‘I would?’
‘It’s all right, Benfro. You’re among friends here. We’ve all run away from something. Well, apart from the likes of Fflint and his friends. Most of the young uns were hatched here on the Twmp.’
Benfro opened his mouth to ask a question, then found there were too many to decide which one should come first. Confused, he shut it again.
‘Has anyone shown you a place to kip? It can get chill out here after dark.’
‘Umm … no.’ Benfro looked at the remains of the deer haunch he’d been given to eat. He’d assumed he would be heading back to Myfanwy’s house at some point, but now he thought about it the old healer had been pleased to see the back of him.
