Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (9 page)

Owain had served Morgan ab Kynan, a Welsh
prince, and had been the captain of Morgan’s warband during the
battle of Balor. When the Boar of Balor had vanquished the prince
into the abyss of the great wormhole, a saddened Owain had pledged
his sword to Merioneth. A telling choice, for he’d picked no man—or
Quicken-tree—to follow, but the land. ’Twas what Mychael had
pledged himself to as well, including the land below Merioneth,
where he knew his destiny lay.

Of the women at the hearthfire, ’twas Moira
stirring the cooking cauldron. She mended his clothes when they
needed it, and was the one he and most of the Quicken-tree went to
when they were ailing. Her brown hair was plaited in a crown around
her head, framing a face of gentle curves and rosy cheeks, but in
her own quiet way, Moira wielded nearly as much power as Rhuddlan.
Elen, next to her, was younger with darker hair, and was growing
heavy with a child conceived during the Quicken-tree’s Beltaine
celebration. Three little girls sat by the fire, giggling over a
game played with seashells and sticks, and Fand, a Liosalfar of the
Ebiurrane clan from the north, lean and blond like the elder
warrior she was, stood talking with Moira and Elen. The one he
sought was not near, though he looked all around.

On his way to the lower bailey, he passed
more Quicken-tree and Ebiurrane, some in groups, some not. He
greeted a few, mainly the Liosalfar at the portcullis, and avoided
others, keeping to the shadows. Still he did not let any go
unnoticed, and the maid was not to be found. Nor was Shay.

Well, there was his answer then, and he
supposed they made a fine enough pair, though he doubted if Shay
had much more experience with women than he did himself. Still, if
that morn’s adventure was anything to judge by, Shay was eager to
learn, and the boy was a quick study. ’Twas no concern of his
either way, he told himself, but Shay was to the deep dark on the
morrow as well, and Mychael would as soon not have the boy mooning
overmuch while they were below.

He passed through an open gate in the inner
curtain between the baileys, heading toward the southwall on the
other side of the great apple orchard. He kept a room in the tower
on one of the lower floors. In spring, he’d awakened one morning to
a shower of fragrant petals falling outside his window and known
he’d truly come home. The orchard was as old as the demesne and
made up of trees as mighty as any oak grove.

A stone chapel nestled against the seaside
wall of the lower bailey, between the orchard and the fields of
grass planted by the Quicken-tree, but Mychael had not had the
courage to enter it. ’Twas a pagan life he led now, searching for
his mother’s gods among the wreckage of the ancient glory of
Merioneth, and ’twas to this end that he devoted himself. Falling
back upon the God he’d forsaken could do him no good.

Upon reaching the tower, he slipped inside
and took to the stairs. ’Twas a matter of course that a man’s
weapons were sharpened before going into the caverns. Mychael would
gather up his iron dagger and his leaf-bladed short sword and go
work with the others bound for the journey ahead.

~ ~ ~

Llynya held her breath as she stretched out
over the battlements, craning her neck to keep Mychael ab Arawn in
view until he stepped inside the tower at the far end of the
orchard. Even with moonlight and lanterns to see him by, and with
her vantage point on top of the inner wall-walk, he’d been
difficult to track across the wards. He moved like a flicker of
shadow and light through the darkness, providing only an elusive
silhouette. She’d lost him a time or two when he’d seemed to
disappear into thin air, but now she knew exactly where he was.

She released her breath and dropped back down
onto her feet. Aye, she knew exactly where he was. She’d waited for
his return the whole afternoon long, but again had missed her
chance to speak to him by hesitating.

Or had she? No other had approached the
southwall tower. He was alone.

The truth of that gave her pause. ’Twould be
a simple thing to present herself at the door to his chamber, and
she would have the privacy she needed for all she would say.
Rhuddlan would banish her farther north to the Ebiurrane or south
again to Deri if he divined even a hint of what she was about. To
breach a wormhole was dangerous beyond reckoning and forbidden to
all. To breach the time weir itself was tantamount to death.

Tantamount—but not death itself, and therein
lay the nature of its terror. To pass through the Weir Gate and
find no purchase on the other side was to spend eternity falling
through the ages. If Morgan had survived the cutting blow that had
sent him over the edge, she feared such had been his fate.

A chill rippled through her at the thought.
She’d seen the flash of the Boar of Balor’s blade and watched in
horror as it had sunk into the Thief. She’d seen the blood fill
Morgan’s mouth—too much blood—and she’d been too late, too late to
save him.

Sticks!
She caught her lower lip with
her teeth. Her hand came up to rub at a spot above her left breast.
Damnable ache. Her place had been at his side. She’d been sworn to
such not just once, but twice by Rhuddlan. Yet during battle she’d
thought only of Ceridwen’s safety, and for that mistake, Morgan had
paid.

And so did she still pay.

She looked to the tower beyond the orchard,
its walled rampart silhouetted against the moonlit sky. Mychael ab
Arawn had walked the tenuous line between the tantamount and death.
If she would do the same, she must deal with him. She’d known that
from the beginning.

So what had stayed her? she wondered. She had
no fear of men, but then neither had she ever had need of one—until
him. Edmee, Madron’s daughter, was not so wary of Mychael, but she
was the granddaughter of Nemeton himself and like Mychael had her
own share of Druid blood running in her veins. Edmee had confided
earlier that day that Mychael tended to keep to himself, being even
more of an outcast than others would make him. Yet Llynya had
spoken with some at Carn Merioneth who were not at all comfortable
with a man who had spent so much time alone in the deep dark; and
others whose discomfort edged toward open hostility, like Bedwyr,
blade-master of the Liosalfar. No Quicken-tree could have survived
the isolation endured by Mychael, not for the months he’d spent in
the caverns, but—Bedwyr had been quick to say—it had not been so
long since the Dockalfar, the Dark-elves, had lived in the deep
dark, and wasn’t there trouble in Riverwood?

The blade-master’s accusations had fallen
just short of naming Mychael ab Arawn consort of the ancient enemy.
More foolishness, she’d told herself, yet twice her own instincts
had warned her off her chosen course.

The Liosalfar tolerated him, for he was
skilled with a bow and proving out with a blade, according to Wei,
Trig’s second in command. He had even mastered the art of the iron
stars, throwing disks with sharp points like the rays of a star.
They were an ancient weapon, not much in use since the Wars, but
the Druid boy had taken to them. Shay called Mychael friend. Madron
had use of him, dire use that it seemed she could not convince him
of—this learned in another confidence from Edmee—and Rhuddlan would
rule him, if he could. As for herself, she knew exactly what she
would have from him; he knew the dark. She needed no other reason
to search him out.

So what had stayed her? ’Twas not bodily harm
she feared, yet twice she’d sensed danger in his presence.

Unexpectedly, he came back out of the tower,
and a wash of relief ran through her. Her hand, still absently
rubbing the strange ache in her chest dropped to her side. He was
not yet for sleep and dreams, and she would have no more hesitation
from herself.

His long strides quickly brought him abreast
of the gatestones in the inner wall. He passed through just below
where she stood on top, heading toward the portcullis by the looks
of the weapons hanging off his belt. She’d seen the Liosalfar
there, grinding their blades to a keen edge for the morrow. On his
current path, Mychael would pass by the keep’s well. If she was
quick, she could intercept him there.

In a twinkling, she was up and gone, before
another warning had the chance to sound in her head and keep her
from her fate.

~ ~ ~

Mychael strode across the ward, listening to
the night wind sough through the tall grass, the mainstay of
Quicken-tree meals. The sounds of laughter and shared conversations
drifted to him on the breeze, coming from the hearthfire and the
portcullis at the far end of the bailey. All of the Quicken-tree
had voices like cool running water, and to hear them mixed together
whether in speech or song was to hear the sweet babbling of brooks
and the rushing tumble of rivers down mountainsides. He had no
place among them, and he oft wondered if they would stay when he
claimed the land as his own. His fight was truly not with them, nor
even with Madron or Rhuddlan, but with a nameless, faceless enemy
he’d sensed only once the night he’d walked the cloisters of Strata
Florida and been beset by the vision. Heresy, to be sure, what he’d
seen of the pagan deeds threatening to damn his soul, yet the whole
of it had drawn him in and with every passing day tightened its
hold.

All men fought the demons inside themselves,
and the night of his vision he’d thought the battle he saw was of a
spiritual nature, and—more blasphemy—that he’d be sainted in four
hundred years for having had it.

But the pull of the damn thing had been
relentless and real, dragging him hack to Merioneth where he’d
found dragon sign and remembered dragon tales of old, things
learned at his mother’s knee, long forgotten yet always known.
’Twas not sainthood awaiting him, he’d realized, for if the dragons
were real and the vision not a metaphor for man’s struggle with
sin, he would become that for which he had no heart, a warlord like
his father, though far worse. In the vision he’d seen himself
wading through a river of blood that poured from the bodies of his
slain enemies, a sword in his hand dripping the same blood, and
above the destruction, the dragons screaming their victory across a
night sky rent by white light and sundering dark flame.

Aye, the dragons had called him home aright,
not for sainthood, but to fight. He who had been raised a man of
peace in a religion that relegated the beasts to myth was to fight
as lord of a land he had not claimed, against an enemy he did not
know—or so he prayed.

What if ’twas the Quicken-tree he must purge
from Merioneth? The question came to him now and again. Could it be
that they had betrayed his parents and then found the new rulers
not to their liking? Doubtful, but possible. After the rout of
Balor, no one else was clamoring for the demesne, leaving a dearth
of enemies.

To their favor, Madron abided the
Quicken-tree, and her father had died in the same battle as
Mychael’s mother and father fifteen years past. Like him, she must
have heard of Gwrnach’s unholy death by his son’s hand and felt
avenged. The son, Caradoc, the Boar of Balor, had disappeared into
the weir with Morgan ab Kynan, ending the Balor line. The other men
of Balor had indeed been slaughtered, but not all by his hand. He’d
killed only three and those with his bow, not a sword—and he’d
killed them to save the maid, not for blood.

So ’twas not the battle behind him, but
mayhaps one he yet faced that could make him a butcher. ’Twas what
he feared more than death, this blood-drenched thing he could
become, for therein lay the loss of God’s will and the true heart
of madness, should he live his life as a ravening beast.

As restless as his thoughts, the wind
changed, slipping over the seaward wall and causing the fields of
grass to sway to the east. He followed the rippling stalks,
watching them crest in dark, golden waves across the bailey, until
his gaze came to the keep’s well.

His steps slowed.

She was there, the elfin maid, standing alone
in a pool of light cast by a small lantern, drawing a bucket of
water. He’d never seen a creature so fair, nor even imagined
one—the dark tumble of her hair, more knotted than tangled,
deliberately tied in a thousand intricate twists and braids and
laced through with leaves; skin that shimmered, begging a touch;
and a face that defied him to remain unmoved. Flowers were pressed
into the Quicken-tree cloth of her tunic and leggings, bright stars
of meadowsweet and rose petals as softly pink as her mouth. Woad
tattoos encircled her wrist and twined upward around her arm in a
pattern of runes and leaves, marking her as a warrior of the
tylwyth teg
, a Liosalfar, utterly pagan. And utterly amazing
that one so seemingly delicate could fight. Yet he’d seen her wield
a blade.

Five months he’d lived with the Quicken-tree
and met many a pretty maiden, and he’d known that whatever he took
from any of them, he would have to give like in return. So he had
taken nothing. He would have none make a claim on him, however
slight, be it for a kiss or more—until now. In Riverwood, at dawn,
this sprite had held his gaze no longer than one moment, but it had
been enough to ensnare him, for he’d seen a single truth in the
verdant depths of her eyes: she was as wild as he, mayhaps even
more so.

Reason enough to steer clear of her, he told
himself, though he slowed his steps just the same. He needed no
more wildness in his life. If he would take a woman, the commonest
of sense and his heritage dictated that she would not be an untamed
elf-maid. Rhuddlan needed no more suzerainty over him.

Aye, she was a complication he did not need,
except for the kiss Shay had taken and he had not. He’d envied the
boy that one brief touch of lips to fair cheek. He envied him
still, but for himself he would have taken more, much more. He knew
the way of a kiss well enough, the melding of mouths and the
sharing of breath and where it could lead. Yet there was no quick
tumble to be had with the elfin maid.