Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (2 page)

Nennius
— a monk

Gruffudd
— former guardsman at Balor
Keep

Mychael ab Arawn
— heir to Carn
Merioneth; son of Rhiannon, last of the Magus Druid Priestesses

Madron
— mistress of the arts of
enchantment

Owain
— Welshman who fought with the
Quicken-tree in the battle for Balor

Edmee
— daughter of Madron and
Rhuddlan

Rhuddlan
— King of the
tylwyth
teg

The Quicken-tree:

Naas
— a seer

Moira
— a healer

Aedyth
— a healer

Liosalfar:

Trig
— captain

Llynya
— the aetheling

Shay

Bedwyr

Wei

Math

Nia

Pwyll

Roth

Caradoc, Wyrm-Master
— former ruler of
Balor Keep

Varga of the Iron Dunes
— Sha-shakrieg
lord from Deseillign

Slott of the Thousand Skulls
— the
Troll King

Ailfinn Mapp
— Prydion Mage

Dockalfar:

Caerlon
— a mage

Lacknose Dock

Blackhand Dock

Frey Dock

Ratskin Dock

Redeye Dock

I
n a long-ago age
on the edge of Deep Time, a star fell to Earth and landed not upon
the great waters, but streamed a course across an island in the
northern sea. Shards of the glittering orb fell like rain onto the
mountains plowed up in the star’s wake, and ever after, when their
time came, the people of the island prized the stones of light,
Dream Stones, and the great metal wrought from the star’s core. In
this they were not alone. Millennia passed millennia, bringing the
Earth into one new age and then another before a darkling shadow
came from afar, seeking the lost star.

From whence came the star and the darkness
there is no record except for the star itself, which had sunk ever
deeper into the rich matrix of the Earth until the surrounding rock
turned the star’s light inward and its heat burned a path through
the Earth’s mantle, opening a passage to a netherworld sea and an
abyss to the core beyond.

Celestial flames, ignited by the star’s
fiery descent, kindled life in the dark waters of the sea, and all
those brought forth by the star’s fire were forever and truly
called the Starlight-born. Fair of face with shining brows, they
were of the union of Heaven and Earth, and the Ages of Wonders were
theirs to rule: the Quicken-tree, Daur, and Ebiurrane, the Kings
Wood and Red-leaf, Wydden and Yr Is-ddwfn.

The descent of the darkling shadow brought
the first ages to an end. The scattered tribes of the
Starlight-born reunited on the ancient fortress-isle of their
birth, and in the thousand thousand years that followed, they
delved deep into the arts of enchantment to find surcease from the
chaos manifest in the everlasting night of Dharkkum. Thus in the
Dark Age the Prydion Magi came into being, and the Seven Books of
Lore, and all manner of things fashioned in the cauldrons of the
magi. Of these, two had the power of war. Born of a single brew in
a crucible wrought from the star’s great metal, a red dragon and a
green roared to life and devoured the darkness, leaving naught but
tattered remains of smoke and effluence. These the Prydion Magi
sealed in the bowels of the Earth with crystal. The dragons they
released into the great oceans of the world to churn the tides and
keep the Moon coming back to the Sun so that between the two
heavenly lights the shadow would ne’er fall again.

But beasts of war are ever hungry, and even
as the dragons spawned their first brood on the shores of the
nether sea, the magi forged a peerless sword to rule them, its edge
tempered with star-wrought metal, its hilt crowned with stones of
light, the Magia Blade. A bloodspell was then cast over the people
of the Earth so that forever after, those who could wield the blade
would come forth in time, whenever needed.

Two such were born on the island, then known
as England, in the twelfth century of the Fifth Age of Men when the
threat of darkness again drew nigh: a woman-child of the Yr
Is-ddwfn, and a man whose blood ran deep with dreams of
war—Aethelings of the Starlight, bound by celestial ether.

September 1198

Ynys Enlli, Isle of Saints

Wales

N
ennius walked
softly across the floor of his hermit’s cell, so softly that his
slippers stirred nary a grain of dust into the air. ’Twas an act of
natural grace for one such as he, to step lightly upon the earth,
so lightly that there were those among the other Culdee monks on
the island who thought him a favored saint. A few, though, would as
soon ascribe to him a more sinister designation, and in truth,
’twas to the latter group he conceded whatever wisdom was to be
found on Ynys Enlli.

A single shaft of light fell through a crack
in the cell door, rending the gloom and shining down upon a roughly
made table and the contents thereof: books. Made of parchment and
bound in oak and leather, many were copied by his own hand; some
saved from their
in quaternis
states on dusty monastery
shelves where they’d been left unbound and forgotten; others more
outrightly stolen and secreted beneath his robes across three seas
to bring them to this far edge of the world where their words had
led him—back to where he’d first awakened on the shores of a cold
sea, sixteen years earlier, awakened lost and consumed by madness.
His years of wandering had taken him to far and distant lands,
before sanity and purpose had returned. With purpose had come the
search for the books. A few of the weighty tomes had been literally
unearthed and pried free from the corpses of monks who had sworn to
take their knowledge with them to their graves. One had been a
gift, a small Psalter, given to him two years past by a hairless,
disaffected brother named Helebore.

He continued past the table to the paillasse
on the floor. He had missed Brother Helebore after he and the rest
of the Culdees had tossed the heretical fool off the rocks into the
sea. Nennius’s guilt, and he’d harbored no great amount, had been
assuaged, though, for the bald brother had floated, not sunk as
they’d thought, and washed himself up for another year of life on
the ill-fated shores of Merioneth—or so sayeth the man who lay on
the paillasse.

Nennius knelt next to the straw pallet.
Weary, half-crazed eyes rolled up at him from out of a weathered
face nearly obscured by a shaggy beard and long, scraggly hair.
Brothers William and Theo had brought the wayfarer to Nennius’s
cell on the southeastern shore of the island, breaking Nennius’s
self-imposed solitude and his peace. He did not fault them for the
breach. Where else to bring a raving lunatic but to one well versed
in the vagaries of unstable minds, especially when the lunatic had
one’s own name on his lips?
Nennius, Nennius,
the man had
cried while pounding on the church door during nones.

In a rambling stream of jumbled words the man
had named himself Gruffudd, a garrison guard of Balor in the
Cymraeg kingdom of Merioneth on the coast of Wales, the lone
survivor of a battle waged against demons in hell whilst spring
blossomed on the land above. He’d spoken of a keep ruled by a boar
and flashes of blue light that cut as cleanly as knives, of women
who fought like banshees by their men’s sides, and of a ghostly
white, hairless devil priest with no eyebrows and a mouth full of
rotten teeth, the Boar’s leech, who had died a devil’s death in the
bowels of the earth, ground asunder by a creature too horrifying to
recall—and Nennius had doubted not a word. Indeed, he’d felt a
growing sense of excitement as the story had unwound.

“Rest, my son,” he said, soothing the man’s
brow with a warm, damp cloth. “You are safe here.”

“Safe?” A large, palsied hand scrabbled for a
hold on his robes. “Helebore cursed ye. Ye must know it. Cursed and
conjured and called upon Satan hisself to bind ye with the flames
of everlasting damnation. He said ye tried to murder him for what
he knew. ’Tis why I came, Father.”

“To see if his incantations had proven
fruitful?” Nennius asked, more curious than taken aback.

“No, Father. No, never,” Gruffudd swore,
tightening his hold. “I prayed for ye, prayed for yer salvation
from his wickedness. Prayed... prayed for ye to save me. Helebore
and his twisted faith brought naught but evil to Balor, for ’tis
lost now, and not one man left alive to tell the tale except
me.”

“Are you so sure? If you survived, mayhaps
another also found the way out of hell.” He wiped the damp cloth
over each of the guardsman’s cheeks.

“Nay,” Gruffudd said, his voice harsh. “All
that fell were dragged into the sea by the demons with the
light-blades. If there’d been a breath left in any of ’em, they’d a
drowned afore they’d found it.”

Just as well, Nennius thought.

“In the Irish Sea?” he asked, dabbing at the
beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow.

“Nay, not the wild, open ocean, but a dark
one far below the land once called Balor. A doomed well it is,
Father, the beach washed with blackwater waves and glowin’ purplish
like with the fire that burns inside the cliffs. I fear ’tis the
lair of... of...” The man’s voice trailed off.

“Of?” Nennius encouraged. When no answer was
forthcoming, he pressed harder. “Is this the place where you saw
the—” His question was cut short by Gruffudd grabbing his scapular
at the neck and dragging his head down.

“Don’t say it, Father,” the guardsman warned,
his breath coming short with budding panic. “Helebore called to the
beast and it kill’t him. I can still hear his screams.” The man
grew quiet, his eyes narrowing and shifting toward the door. “Aye,
I can still hear him screamin’ and see the beast draggin’ him. It’s
hauntin’ me, Father, stalkin’ me nights. Ye must make it go away.”
His gaze returned to Nennius’s, and his voice became tinged with
desperation. “If anyone can make it go away, it’s ye. Ye alone are
left who knew the blackness of the leech’s soul. Just ye and—and
me.”

“Aye,” Nennius calmly agreed. “We are
together, you and I. Alas, poor Brother Helebore had a black heart
in search of black deeds.”

“Very black deeds,” Gruffudd said, then
lowered his voice to a confessional whisper. “Mayhaps even blacker
than ye know, Father. At the Boar’s bidding, he brought a witch to
Balor, a fair, lovely lass, name of Ceridwen, and she was’t the
ruin of us all. I thought ’twas greed, but ’twas blasphemy, pure
blasphemy a’needing the witch’s blood that took us into the caves
time and again, may God forgive me.”

“You were with Helebore when he searched the
caves?” Nennius asked, giving little credence to the man’s talk of
a witch. Men had always found themselves in need of women,
especially fair and lovely ones; and a witch, he knew, could be
either this or that and seldom what was thought, depending on the
whim and motive of the man in need. Many a kingdom had fallen on
account of a fair face, sometimes justly so, as he well knew. And
sometimes unjustly, as he knew even better.

A faint memory stirred at the edge of his
consciousness, a fleeting scene of a woman striding away from him
across a bleak landscape, cloak billowing, sand blowing, a flash of
golden skin and even more golden hair showing between the white
folds of the loosely bound turban flowing onto her shoulders.
Away from him.

He swore silently, gritting his teeth, and
turned his mind to the present. Women were a danger, especially
fair and lovely ones. As for blood, ’twas a basic elixir, good for
all manner of things and worthless for as many others.