The Golden Cage (36 page)

‘I'm fine,' he said, his voice sounding strange to him in the echoing space. ‘I've got what I was looking for. Let's get out of here.'

They retreated swiftly along the passageway, stepping back into the main cave far sooner than Melyn expected. With Corwen's jewels in his pocket, rather than resting in their place of power, the spells that had hidden the dead dragon's home had rapidly evaporated and tendrils of mist were seeping into the dry space. It wouldn't take long for the wooden furniture to start mouldering.

‘You two. Take that chest and throw it out into the river.' Melyn cast his eyes quickly over the cave to see if there was anything else worth investigating or taking, but
there were no books, no gold trinkets, no hoard other than the small pile of jewels. He let himself down into the icy water as the warrior priests hauled the chest across the floor. They tipped it over the edge, jumping in after it, and he followed them through the deluge out into the clearing beyond.

Darkness had almost completely fallen, the first few stars pricking the pink sky. Someone had built a fire close to the stone corral, and the smell of roasting meat wafted across to him as Melyn waded out of the river. He squeezed out his robes as best he could while he walked, but he would have to dig fresh clothes from his pack. At least the water had washed the road dust from his face and hair.

‘Where's Frecknock?' He swung his sodden riding cloak off, draping it on the wall of the corral to catch the heat from the fire. The light from the flames made everything else dark. He moved closer, warming his hands.

‘In the cave, sir. She hasn't moved in hours.'

‘Hours? What are you talking about, man? I left her in there just a few minutes ago.' Confused, Melyn went to his horse and pulled dry clothes from a pack before stepping into the small cave. It was pitch black in there now, just a thin band of firelight falling on the seated form of the dragon.

‘How can I lose hours and not realize?' Melyn threw his dry clothes down on to the bed of grass and began pulling off his wet ones. Frecknock's eyes were two shining points in the darkness across the cold hearth.

‘This place is alive with the Grym,' she said. ‘There are
powerful wards everywhere. Breaking them might well have put you outside normal time for a while.'

‘But I'd know, surely. I'm not some wet-eared novitiate; I've studied magic all my life.' Melyn pulled on his dry clothes, reaching out to the lines for warmth as he did so.

‘I didn't begin my studies in the subtle arts until I was seventy years old, Your Grace. I'm almost two hundred now. It's possible I've been learning the subtle arts even longer than you. Corwen may well have studied them ten times as long as me. More, even.'

Melyn wanted to scoff. It was common knowledge that dragons lived longer than men, but not nearly as long as they claimed. Still, he couldn't deny the sheer sophistication of the spells that had protected the cave behind the waterfall, nor the enormously complex workings that made navigation through the Ffrydd so difficult.

‘I found a pile of jewels in a cavern behind the waterfall. How could a pile of jewels maintain such magic? Surely only a living creature could manage that.'

‘You found jewels? White jewels?' Frecknock shifted her great bulk, leaning forward so that her head fell within the band of orange light cast by the fire outside.

‘Is that significant?'

‘A single dragon's jewels, laid to rest in a place of power. That is how we honour our most powerful mages. They lie for ever at a nexus in the Grym, watching over Gwlad and offering their wisdom to any who would ask for it.'

‘Well, they won't be handing out dragon wisdom any more. Not unless they're prepared to give it to me.'

‘What … what did you do with them, Your Grace?'
Frecknock's voice was quiet, timid. She was afraid to ask, Melyn could tell. She didn't want to upset the delicate balance between them. And yet she needed to know so much she was prepared to push the boundaries a little. He went to pick up his cloak, then realized that it, and the contents of its deep pockets, were drying on the warm stone wall of the corral outside. The pause was enough for him to change his mind. He had been intending to show them to her, to impress her with his skill at breaking down the magical barriers to the final resting place of a great mage. But he realized that such bragging was unnecessary.

‘That's not your concern.' He went to the cave mouth. ‘Come. Have something to eat, then get some rest. Tomorrow morning we rejoin the main army. Then you'll show us this pass through the mountains to Llanwennog.'

Night was fully upon them now. Melyn took his place by the fire, accepting a plate of roasted meat augmented with a few forest herbs and roots boiled into a sharp-tasting mush. Trail food was always unpleasant, but he knew that it was necessary to keep his strength up. Frecknock emerged from the cave and hovered behind the ring of warrior priests sitting around the fire until they had finished eating, then took a surprisingly small amount of the remaining carcass. He was watching her settling down with her meal beside the corral when a commotion from the far side of the ford grabbed everyone's attention. The warrior priests leaped to their feet, blades shimmering into brightness in the dark as a band of riders swept noisily through the ford. Melyn recognized the lead horse almost instantly, as did his men, who extinguished their blades and went to meet the troop.

Captain Osgal dismounted, letting his horse put its head down and graze as he came up to Melyn. His face was black, his eyebrows and a chunk of hair from the top of his head missing.

‘By the Shepherd, Osgal. What happened to you? Did you get them?'

‘No, sir.' Osgal dropped his head, then went down on one knee. ‘I've failed you, Inquisitor. They were there, just where you said they'd be. The dragon was flying when we arrived, and the boy … just appeared. We were almost upon him when the dragon swooped and gathered him up.'

‘You had bows, didn't you?' Melyn found that his anger had failed him. In its place he felt a weary resignation, a fatalistic understanding that he would have to try a lot harder if he wanted to catch Errol and Benfro. ‘Why didn't you shoot at them?'

‘We did, sir. But …' Osgal fell silent as if lost for words. His eyes darted past Melyn's and the inquisitor looked around to see Frecknock looking their way, her eyes wide, her ears swivelled forward to catch every word. She had the decency to look embarrassed when she saw she had been noticed, but Melyn didn't much care if she heard.

‘Go on, Captain. Explain to me how my best warrior priests suddenly lost the ability to aim a crossbow.'

‘Their aim was true, Inquisitor. Every quarrel would have hit its target, but the dragon burned them all up.'

‘Burned?'

‘He breathed fire, sir. It melted our bolts. Hotter than the Wolf's lair it was, but it didn't touch the boy.' Osgal held out a black lump, which Melyn took from him. It was
heavy and looked a little like a crossbow bolt might if it had been dropped back into the blacksmith's forge and forgotten about.

‘He used it on us as well.' Melyn could hear the distress in Osgal's voice as the captain recalled the events. ‘And that time it burned. Any closer and it would have killed us. By the time we calmed the horses, he'd gone, taken the boy with him.'

Melyn weighed the melted quarrel in his hand, looking back at Frecknock, who had given up pretending she wasn't listening. ‘What is this? Since when did dragons breathe fire?'

‘Your Grace … there are legends. When we were feral beasts. Before great Rasalene showed us … the wonders of the Grym.' Frecknock's words came out in short squeaky bursts, as if she were gulping for air, horrified at what she was hearing. ‘But never … in ten thousand years. More. No. No.'

Errol was too terrified even to look down. He scrunched his eyes shut and hung on to Benfro's scaly arms with all his strength. He could feel his legs dangling beneath him, battered by the wind. He was dazed and confused and very, very afraid.

After a while he opened his eyes a tiny fraction, then wished that he hadn't. They were high above the trees and moving at a dizzying speed. The canopy beneath them was changing from spreading broadleaves to dense patches of conifer, though from this new angle it took him a while to realize that was what he was seeing. Twisting his head to one side, he saw past Benfro's steadily beating wing to the bulk of Mount Arnahi, its western flank painted orange-pink by the setting sun. Straight ahead he could make out the lower peaks of the eastern arm of the Rim mountains, clear in the evening light and much closer than he had expected.

He tried to speak, but his voice was whipped away by
the wind which tore tears from his eyes and blew through his clothes as if they weren't there at all. As he took stock of his situation, Errol felt the cold loosening his grip. Benfro still held him tight, but that wasn't something he wanted to have to rely on. The dragon was carrying all the bags as well. Surely he couldn't manage all that weight for long?

And yet there was nothing Errol could do but cling on for his life, growing ever colder and more tired. He tried tapping on Benfro's arm to get the dragon's attention, but to do it properly meant loosening his hold. And Benfro seemed intent on putting as much distance between them and the warrior priests as possible. In that regard Errol could only agree; he just wished there was a more comfortable way of going about it.

The sun slipped below the distant haze of the western Rim mountains as Errol began to lose all feeling in his arms and legs. He'd long since felt his face go numb and then disappear altogether. He tried to reach out to the lines, to pull in the power of the Grym to warm him. But he was too high up, too far removed from Gwlad, to tap into that life force. And it was so hard to concentrate, so hard to keep holding on, so hard to stay awake.

He must have nodded off, for when Errol looked down again, he could see the pine trees thinning out, dark rocks rolled down from the mountains above the traces of ancient landslides. They were climbing with the hills, and the air was thin in his lungs, spreading its chill deep into his body. He was impossibly tired, fighting against the waves of sleep that washed over him. Darkness was
falling, and he couldn't work out if that was because of the setting sun or just his vision fading as the cold took him.

Then they crossed a ridge and were flying over snow. Errol remembered the scraps of dirty white that still clung to the higher passes when he made the trip from Emmass Fawr to Tynewydd, and the deep drifts that piled up around the walls of the monastery over the winter. They were nothing compared to what he looked down upon now. It was a vast field of white, crystals glinting in the last of the day's fading light. It smoothed out the contours into a series of gentle folds, each climbing higher so that they seemed to reach for the star-specked sky.

Cold beyond belief, shivering uncontrollably, Errol didn't notice that they were descending towards this high plateau until they were almost upon it. The darkness made it hard to judge distance, the unblemished surface even more so. It was only when Benfro shifted his grip that he realized what was about to happen. As it was, his terror at the prospect of landing was short-lived.

They hit the ground faster than was perhaps wise. Just before impact Errol felt himself being pushed away. He tumbled briefly through the air, then crashed into the snow. It cushioned his fall, but still drove the wind out of him and smothered him in cold. He had a brief glimpse of Benfro's great bulk hitting the ground a few paces further on before his own momentum drove him down, kicking up a great powdery mass of snow into his face with an explosion of noise and darkness.

Errol lay unfeeling for what seemed like an age. He had
gone beyond cold and through fear. Now he just wanted to lie there, head down in the snow, and sleep for a little while. There was no hurry, no need to run. He was safe here, and warm. He could rest.

‘Wake up.' A large hand grabbed the back of his cloak and hauled him to his feet. Errol tried to focus, but he couldn't even open his eyes. He wished whoever was bothering him would go away. Then he could settle back down into the nice warm snow and sleep.

‘Come on, Errol. Wake up.' He felt himself being shaken, tingles of discomfort coming from his legs and hands. It was the first sensation he had felt from them in a long while and it stirred a warning in his memory. Captain Osgal, of all people, telling him what could happen to someone who let the cold get to them. But he wasn't cold; he was warm. He didn't need the lines. Or had that been what the captain had said – that extreme cold makes the body think it's warm? He couldn't remember, could hardly think straight at all. Had the captain said it would make him tired as well? Or was that his mother?

‘Oh, by the moon!' Errol felt himself being shaken then turned round. Then an incredible sensation swept over his face and hands. It was as if he were being doused in the softest of liquids. Where it touched him, it warmed him in such a way that he realized he had actually been frozen. It washed away the tiredness, putting strength back into his arms, his legs, his neck and eyelids. Lifting his head, he opened his eyes and almost screamed.

He was engulfed in pale blue flame, which danced and shimmered over his arms and body. Benfro stood in front
of him, holding him by the shoulders, staring intently at him, but all Errol knew was that he was on fire.

‘How?' He opened his mouth to speak, and the flame ran in as if it were alive, plunged down his throat and into his lungs, warming him from the inside. He coughed, but more out of reflex than from any discomfort; this flame didn't consume the air he was breathing. Instead it flowed around him, through him, until he was restored to something near normal. And then, its job done, it slowly faded away, leaving only the night and the keen, cold wind.

‘Did you … ? What did you … ?' Errol struggled to form words.

‘I'm sorry, Errol. I was so intent on getting away that I flew too high and too far. I should have realized. You might have frozen to death.'

‘But the fire. I never realized … Can you all do that?'

‘I don't think so. I've never met another dragon who could. Most would think it disgusting, feral even. Corwen didn't think that though.'

Corwen. Errol heard the old dragon's last words echoing in his mind. He slapped his hands against his sides, feeling the two small lumps, one in either pocket.

‘I got the jewels.' He reached into the first pocket and pulled out the cloth-wrapped bundle that was Magog, unwrapping it to reveal the shining gem. In the starlight, reflected through innumerable ice crystals, it was as black as coal. ‘It didn't come without a fight.'

‘Put it away,' Benfro said, averting his gaze. Errol hastily wrapped the jewel up again and pushed it to the bottom of his pocket. Then he reached into the other side and
pulled out Morgwm's jewel. It glinted palest white; if he dropped it in the snow they might never find it again. He could feel the soft touch of the memories held within it: fierce pride, gentle intelligence, worried concern and above all else deep sadness. The touch also brought back to his memory the images he had seen before, of a newborn infant nestling with a hatchling dragon, Princess Lleyn and Father Gideon, the sun blanked out by the disc of the moon.

‘Give it to me.' Benfro's voice cut through Errol's musing, and he looked down to see that he had clenched his fist over the jewel. Embarrassed, he relaxed his fingers and passed Morgwm's memories on to her son. Instead of thanking him, Benfro snatched the jewel away, turning his body as if it needed his whole bulk to protect the tiny stone.

‘You shouldn't have touched her.' Benfro's tone was as cold as the snow that trickled in through a gap at the top of one of Errol's boots.

‘I'm sorry. There was no other way. Melyn was coming.'

‘And you left Corwen there?'

‘I had no choice. I would have been captured.'

‘After all he did for you, you just left him behind to be … to be … defiled by that monster. How could you do such a thing?'

‘He wouldn't let me. He pushed me away. I …' Errol tried to explain, even though he felt terrible about what he had been forced to do anyway. Benfro's sudden mood change shocked him. The dragon had been helping him. Why was he suddenly so angry?

‘Look, I'm sorry. I tried to bring Corwen's jewels, but he stopped me. He knew what was going to happen, said it was better. That way he'd be with Melyn wherever he went.'

‘Don't try to explain. Don't make excuses. I should have left you for the warrior priests. I should have let you freeze.' Benfro spat the words over his shoulder, then turned his back completely and stalked off into the darkness. Errol stood and watched him go, bemused, until the cold seeping into his feet reminded him of where he was. Being stuck somewhere near the top of a snow-capped mountain was not his idea of fun, though it beat being captured by the inquisitor and his men.

He sought out the lines, trying to tap them for warmth. The place was so barren, the snow so deep, that at first he had difficulty finding any, and when he did, they were weak and thin. Still, he was able to tap the nearest, to feel the power of the Grym surge through his body, giving him energy and driving away the cold. His breath steamed in the night air as he paused a while just to enjoy the sense of freedom. Overhead the night sky was clearer, closer than he had ever seen it before. Behind him, lost somewhere in the dark mass that was the distant forest, Melyn and his warrior priests still pursued him, but they were a long way away and he had a good head start. Pulling his cloak around his shoulders to keep out the wind, Errol set off in Benfro's footsteps.

‘Have you seen the Duke of Abervenn?'

Beulah walked the well-appointed corridors of Lord Beylin's castle, stopping anyone she came across, few
though they were, and asking them all the same question. She suspected that many of the castle staff were avoiding her deliberately; quite often she heard voices whispering urgently just around corners or behind closed doors, and occasionally she caught sight of figures darting away. It was obvious that they were terrified of her even though she had done nothing to deserve the reputation that prompted their fears. At least she hadn't done anything in Beylinstown.

Perhaps it was news of the battle with the band of mercenaries. Perhaps these simple provincials found it hard to cope with the idea of a woman fighting, and killing, armed men. Or perhaps they were simply frightened of her because she was their ruler. Whatever the reason, it was tiresome, and her temper was fraying to the point where she might very well begin to earn her reputation. This latest page, cornered before he could make good his escape down a servants' stairwell to the kitchen wing, was not much use either. He stared at her wide-eyed, his mouth working away as he tried to remember how to speak. And when he did find his voice it was high-pitched and squeaky, like a peasant girl hawking bread in the street.

‘N-no, Your Majesty. I've n-not seen n-no one.'

Beulah dismissed him with a wave and carried on down the corridor. She had woken that morning to find Clun gone from their bed and not in the bathing room either. Normally she wouldn't have worried about it; he was free to come and go as he pleased, after all. But since the incident with Father Tolley he had become more introspective, quieter even than his usually reticent self. He had taken to going off on long walks around the city in the
afternoons when she retired to their rooms to rest and work on healing her wounds. But he had never disappeared so early in the day before.

From what she could tell, he had dressed in his plainest clothes, taking his old novitiate's cloak and boots rather than anything she had given him. Beulah seldom worried about others – she had never had someone to care about until Clun had come along – but this behaviour was sufficiently out of the ordinary to give her concern. Her mind raced at all manner of implausible possibilities. Had he found a young lass in the town and was bedding her on the side? Was he secretly plotting with Lord Beylin to kill her and take the throne? Maybe he had fallen for all that mumbo-jumbo about the coming of the true king and was busy learning the secrets of Mad Goronwy's prophecies.

Beulah laughed out loud at the thought of strait-laced Clun bent studiously over a reading desk, one finger tracing lines of meaningless words etched on to a parchment. He would no more betray her than cut off his own arms. But it bothered her that she even thought these things of him.