The Endless Knot (49 page)

To which Scatha replied, “Only the chaste kiss will restore her to her rightful place.”

Cynan cast a sidelong glance at us. “Well?” he demanded impatiently. “Are we to stand here waiting all day?”

“No, but first we must see if there is another entrance to this place,” I said.

“It will be done.” Cynan gestured to Owyn and three other warriors, who disappeared around the near corner of the stone curtain on the run.

They reappeared on the far side a short while later. “There is no other entrance,” Owyn said.

“Did you see anyone?” Scatha asked.

“No one,” the Galanae warrior answered.

“Then we will go in.” I raised my spear in silent signal and the war band, ranged behind me, moved toward the gate.

As we passed under the shadow of the wall, a voice called out. “Stop! Come no closer!”

My head swiveled to the broken battlement. The Brazen Man stood above and to the left, leering bronze mask in place and spear in hand, gazing down upon us.

“Your war host is defeated!” I shouted. “Throw down your weapons and release your captives. Do this at once or you will certainly die.”

The bronze warrior tilted his head and laughed, an ugly, hateful sound. I had heard it before.

The laughter stopped abruptly. “You do not rule here!” he shouted angrily. Then, softening in almost the same breath, he said, “If you want your bride, come and get her. But come alone.”

He vanished from the wall before I could answer.

“I mislike this,” Cynan grumbled.

“I do not see that we have any other choice,” I pointed out. “I will go alone.”

Scatha objected. “It is a foolish risk.”

“I know,” I told her. “But it is a risk we must take for Goewyn's sake.”

She nodded, put her hand beneath her cloak and withdrew a slender knife. She stepped close and tucked it into my belt. “I armed you once, and I do so again, son of mine. Save my daughter.”

“That I will do, Pen-y-Cat,” I replied. She embraced and kissed me, then turned away, taking her place at the head of the war band.

I took two steps toward the gate.

“Wait!” Cynan came to stand beside me. “You will not go alone while TwoTorcs draws breath,” he said firmly. “My wife is captive, too, and I am going with you.” He took a step toward the door. “We can dispute the matter, or we can rescue our wives.”

There would be no dissuading him, so I agreed, and we advanced together through the gate and into the courtyard beyond.

Dry weeds poked up through the cracks of the paved yard; they shifted in the wind like long white whiskers. Fallen stone lay all around. Arched doorways opened off the courtyard, revealing black, empty passages beyond. At the far end of the yard, opposite the gate, stood a steep-peaked building; the roof was collapsed, and curved roof tiles littered the yard like dragon scales. A short flight of stone steps led up to a narrow wooden door. The door, twice the height of a man, stood open.

A chill shivered up through my silver hand, “He is near,” I whispered to Cynan.

We moved steadily, stealthily, up the steps, paused, then pushed the door open wide. Instantly we were assailed by the stench of rotting meat mingled with urine and excrement. The outside door opened into a dark vestibule thick with filth. The severed heads of two unfortunates were nailed to the lintel above a lower inner door. The doorposts were smeared with blood.

Stepping cautiously through the low door, we passed into the hall beyond. “I have been waiting,” a voice said. “We have all been waiting.”

37
T
HE
H
ERO
F
EAT

T
orches illuminated the single great room, casting a thin, sullen light that did little to efface the deep-shadowed darkness. In the center of the room stood the Brazen Man. The torchlight flickering over the facets of his bronze mask made it seem as if his features were continually melting and reforming.

Behind him were two doors barred and bound with iron. As I looked, Goewyn's face appeared at the small window of the one door, and Tángwen's at the other. Neither woman cried out, but both stood gripping the bars of their prisons and watching us with the astonished yet fearful expressions of captives who have long ago abandoned hope of release, only to learn that hope has not abandoned them.

My first thought was to run to Goewyn and pull that prison apart with my bare hands. I wanted to take her in my arms and carry her away from that stinking hellhole. I stepped toward the Brazen Man. “Let them go,” I said.

“You did not come alone,” the man said ominously.

“My wife is captive too,” Cynan spat. “If you have harmed her, I will kill you. Let her go.”

“
Your
wife?” the bronze clad warrior queried. “She might have shared your bed, but Tángwen was never wife to you, Cynan Machae.”

“Who are you?” Cynan demanded, pushing past me into the room. The sword in his hand trembled in his clenched fist, he gripped it so hard.

“You want them freed?” the Brazen Man shouted suddenly, taking a swift sidestep. “Free them yourselves.” He put out his hand and extended a bronze-mailed finger, pointing to a spot on the floor surrounded by torches. “Do what you will.”

I looked where he pointed and saw two keys in an iron ring lying on the stone-flagged floor. Glancing quickly at the cell doors, I saw that they had been recently fitted with new brass locks.

With a nod to Cynan, we moved forward cautiously. My silver hand began to throb with cold, sending sharp pains up my arm. I gritted my teeth and stepped closer, spear ready. The keys had been placed in the center of a knotwork design, the figure outlined on the floor in lines of fine black ash and bits of bone—the ash of burnt sacrifice, I supposed. The braziers burned with a bitter smoke.

“What is it?” Cynan wondered. “Do you know?”

The sign was a crude parody of the
Môr Cylch
, the Life Maze, but it was backwards and broken, the lines haphazard, erratic. All the elegance and beauty of the original had been willfully marred.

“It is a charm of some sort,” I told Cynan.

“I am not afraid of a mark on the floor,” he sneered. Before I could stop him, Cynan pushed past me and stooped to grab the keys. Upon entering the circle, however, he was gripped by an instant paralysis, caught and unable to move. “Llew!” he cried, through quick-clenched teeth in a frozen jaw. “Help me!”

I glanced at the bronze-clad man. His eyes glittered hard and black behind the brazen mask. “Oh, help him, yes.” The brazen snake almost hissed. “By all means, do help him.” Then he laughed.

I knew the laugh. I had heard it too many times before not to recognize it now. He laughed again and removed every last crumb of doubt, confirmed every suspicion.

“Enough, Simon!” I shouted. “Let him go.”

Lifting a bronze gauntlet to his chin, the man lifted the metal mask and took off his helmet. The face was pale, deathly pale, and thin, wasted. The flesh seemed almost transparent; blue veins snaked his eyelids and the skin of his throat. He looked like a ghost, a wraith, but there was no mistaking the set of his chin, nor the hatred smoldering in his eyes.

“Siawn Hy,” he corrected and stepped closer. My silver hand throbbed; icy spikes stabbed into my flesh.

“I made that for you,” Siawn said, indicating the circle on the floor. “But I like it better this way. Just you and me. Face-to-face.”

He stood before me and drew his bronze-mailed glove from his left hand, then slowly raised it to his forehead, palm outward. It was a bardic gesture—I had seen Tegid do it many times—but as he turned his hand I saw on the palm, carved into the very flesh, the image of an eye.

Siawn loosed a string of words in a tongue I did not know. I could not take my eyes from the symbol carved into the flesh of his palm. The skin was thickly scarred, but the cuts were fresh and a little blood oozed from the wound.

He spoke again, and the muscles in my arms and legs stiffened. My back and shoulders felt like blocks of wood. Locked in this strange seizure, I could not move. The spear fell from my fingers and clattered on the floor; my limbs grew instantly rigid. More words poured from Siawn's mouth, a dizzying torrent to drown all resistance, a dark chant of wicked power. My breath flowed from my mouth and lungs. Cynan, immobile beside me, made a strangled, whimpering noise.

Someone screamed my name—Goewyn, I think. But I could not see her. I could not close my eyes or look away. The evil eye drew all thought and volition to itself; it seemed to burn itself into my mind as Siawn Hy's words swirled around me, now buzzing like insects, now rasping like crows. My breath became labored, halting, but my vision grew keen.

The ancient evil of Tir Aflan . . . this was how Siawn Hy had awakened it, and he now wielded it as a weapon. But there existed a power far more pointed than he would ever know.

Goodly-Wise is the Many-Gifted
, I thought,
who upholds all that call upon
him. Uphold me now!

In the same moment, I felt the Penderwydd's sacred awen quicken within me. Like the unfurling of a sail, my spirit slipped from its constricting bonds. A word, a name formed on my tongue, and I spoke it out: “Dagda . . . Samildanac . . .”

Up from my throat it came, leaping from my tongue, in a shout. “Dagda Samildanac!”

Searing bolts of icy fire streaked from my silver hand, up my arm and into my shoulder. Whatever the source of the power Siawn possessed, it could not quench the cold fire flame in my silver hand: the smooth silver surface glowed white; the intricate-patterned maze-work of the Dance of Life shone with a fiery golden light.

Siawn's voice boomed in my ears as he moved closer, barking the words. I saw the hideous eye carved into the flesh of Siawn's palm as he reached to touch me with it, to mark me with that hideous symbol.

“By the power of the Swift Sure Hand, I resist you,” I said, and raised my silver hand, pressing my palm flat against his.

He screamed, jerking his palm away from mine. Threads of smoke rose from the wound on his hand. Air flowed back into my lungs, and with it the smell of burning flesh. Siawn Hy staggered backwards moaning, cradling his injured hand. The red wound on his palm had been obliterated, the obscene stigmata cauterized; in place of the evil eye was the branded imprint of the Môr Cylch, the Life Maze.

Suddenly free, I leapt to Cynan's aid, knelt beside him, drew a deep breath, and blew the black ash away, breaking the power of the charm. Cynan fell forward onto his arms and sprang quickly to his feet. “Brother, that was well done!”

I grabbed the keys. “Watch him!” I commanded Cynan.

“Gladly!” Cynan raised his word and advanced on the stricken Siawn, pressing the blade into the base of his throat.

I ran to the iron-bound doors, thrust a key into the first lock and turned. The lock gave grudgingly and I pulled with all my might; the hinges complained, but the door swung open. Goewyn burst from her prison and caught me in a crushing embrace. I kissed her face and lips and neck, and felt her lips flitting over my face. She kept repeating my name over and over as she kissed me.

“You are free, my love,” I told her. “It is over. You are safe now. You are free.”

I held her to me again, and she gave a little cry and pulled away. Her hands went to her stomach, now swelling noticeably beneath her stained and filthy mantle. I put my hand to the softly rounded mound to feel the life within.

“Are you well? Did he hurt you?” I had refused the thought of her suffering for so long that belated concern now overwhelmed me.

Goewyn smiled; her face was pale and drawn, but her eyes were clear and glowing with love and happiness. “No,” she said cupping her hand to my face. “He told me things—terrible things.” Tears welled up suddenly in her eyes and splashed down her cheeks. “But he did not hurt me. I think Tángwen is safe too.”

Cynan, holding Siawn Hy at the point of his sword, turned at the mention of his wife's name. The sword point wavered as his eyes shifted to the door of her cell. Wrapped in Goewyn's embrace, glancing over her shoulder I saw the door swing open. Cynan's first response was elation. And then the full significance of the unlocked cell hit him.

The joy on his face turned sickly and died. His eyes grew wide with horror.

“Treachery!” he cried.

The door to Tángwen's cell banged open and armed men charged out of its dark depths and into the room. Cynan was already moving toward them, sword raised. Siawn reacted with blinding speed: his foot snaked out and Cynan pitched forward. He hit the stone floor with a crack; his blade flew from his grasp and skittered across the floor.

A heartbeat later, four men were on his back and four more, with Paladyr chief among them, came for me. I thrust Goewyn behind me, shielding her with my body and drawing the knife Scatha had given me. But I was too late. They were on me. Paladyr's blade pricked the skin of my throat.

Two more foeman caught Goewyn and held her by the arms. Just then, Tángwen, smug with victory, emerged from her cell. “One should always be careful who one marries,” Siawn said, as Tángwen came to stand beside him.

“What I did, I did for my father and for my brothers,” Tángwen exulted. “They rode with Meldron, and you cut them down. The blood debt will be satisfied.”

Siawn, still cradling his branded hand, stalked forward, laughing. He came to stand before me, his face the terrible, twisted leer of a demon. He spat a command to one of his minions, and the man disappeared into the shadows somewhere behind me. “So you begin to see at last.”

“Let the others go, Siawn,” I said. “It is me you want. Take me and let the others go.”

“I have you, friend,” he jeered. “I have you all.”

Just then there arose a commotion from the far corner of the room. A door opened behind me—I could not see it, but I heard the hinges grind—and in shuffled Tegid, Gwion, Bran, and the Ravens, handbound all of them, with chains on their feet and a guard for each one. Tegid's face was bruised and his clothing torn in several places; Bran and Drustwn could not stand upright, and Garanaw's arm dangled uselessly at his side. My proud Raven Flight appeared to have been battered into bloody submission. Behind them came Weston and four other strangers, looking frightened and very confused.