Dragonspell: The Southern Sea

That night the drizzle turned into a full-fledged winter storm, a long howl and slash of rain pounding out of the south. It was only the first of many, Nevyn knew; the winter promised to be a bad one, and the Southern Sea impassable for many a long month. In his chamber, high up in the main broch of Aberwyn’s dun, the shutters strained and banged in their latches, and the candle-lanterns guttered in the draughts. Although the charcoal brazier was glowing a cherry-red, he put on a heavy wool cloak and arranged the peaked hood around his neck to ward off the creeping chill. His guest was even more uncomfortable. A Bardekian, close to seven feet tall and massively built, Elaeno had skin so dark that it was as blue-black as ink, a colour indicating that he was at home in hot climates, not this damp draughtiness. This particular night he was muffled up in two cloaks over a pair of linen shirts and some wool brigga that had been specially sewn to fit him. Even so, he shivered at each gust of wind.

‘How do you barbarians manage to survive in this godforsaken climate?’ Elaeno inched his chair a bit closer to the brazier.

‘With great difficulty, actually. You should be glad we’re here on the coast, not way up north, say in Cerrgonney. At least it rarely snows in Eldidd. Up to the north they’ll be over their heads in the stuff in another month.’

‘You know, I’ve never seen snow. I can’t say I’m pining away from the lack.’

‘It wouldn’t ache my heart if I never saw the nasty stuff again, either. I’m cursed grateful you’d winter here.’

‘You don’t need to keep saying that.’

‘My thanks, but ye gods, I feel so weary these days. There’s so blasted much riding on our Rhodry, and there he is, off in Bardek where we can’t reach him till spring, and the gods only know how he’s faring. When I think of the worst possibilities – ’

‘Don’t think of them. Just don’t. There’s naught we can do now, so don’t dwell on what might be. Easier said than done, I’ll admit.’

With a sigh Nevyn took a scoopful of charcoal out of the bucket and scattered it into the brazier, where the Wildfolk of Fire were dancing and sporting on the pinkish-red coals. Although he wasn’t sure who had hired them, Nevyn knew that Rhodry had been kidnapped by one of the Bardekian blood guilds, who permanently removed little problems like rivals for an inheritance for those that had the coin to hire them. He could only hope that the lad was still alive, and that if he were, he hadn’t been put to the – resolutely he turned his mind away. The blood guilds were known to amuse themselves with their prisoners in ways that did not bear thinking about. When he heard distant thunder crack, he jumped like a startled cat.

‘I’ve never seen you this worried,’ Elaeno remarked.

‘Naught’s come along to worry me this badly in close to a hundred years.’

‘I keep forgetting just how long you’ve lived.’

‘It’s a hard thing to remember, no doubt. I tend to forget it myself. Along with a great many other things about the past, let me tell you. It all blurs together after a while.’

‘I see.’ Elaeno hesitated for a long while on the edge of a question. ‘You know, I’ve often wondered what’s given you your – well, I suppose it’s none of my affair.’

‘Hum? Haven’t you heard that tale? You see what I mean about my ancient mind? I’d been thinking I’d told you already, and here I’d forgotten I hadn’t. All those long years ago when I was young, and, truly, I was indeed young once no matter what I look like now, I loved a woman named Brangwen, and I got myself betrothed to her. But I thought I loved my dweomer studies more.’ Nevyn heaved himself out of his chair and began to pace by the brazier. ‘There are a great many ins and outs to this story, most of which I’ve forgotten, but in the end, I betrayed her. Because of me, Brangwen died, and her brother, and an innocent man who loved her, too. That part I’ll never forget. And it fell to me to dig her grave and bury her. I was beside myself with guilt and grief that day, well and truly shrieking mad with shame. So I swore a vow, that never would I rest until I’d put things right. And from that day to this, I’ve done my best to put them right, over and over as Brangwen and the others were reborn and crossed my path, but I’ve failed every time, and so I’ve never gone to my rest.’

‘Are you telling me that the Great Ones accepted a vow like that?’

‘They did. Well, I’d broken one vow, hadn’t I? I suppose they wanted to see if I could keep the new one.’ He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. ‘Does it seem wonderful to you, living over four hundred years?’

‘It doesn’t, and especially not when I hear the weariness in your voice.’

‘Good. You’ll go far in the dweomer, Elaeno.’ Nevyn sat down again and sighed with a heavy exhaustion. ‘But keep that vow I will. Brangwen belongs to the dweomer, and by every god in the sky, I’ll make her see it this time or die trying – Oh by the hells, what a stupid excuse for a jest!’

‘This time? She’s been reborn, then, has she?’

‘She has. Jill, Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter.’

Elaeno gaped.

‘The same lass that’s off with that lackwit Salamander,’ Nevyn said. ‘On her way to Bardek after Rhodry. The very same one indeed.’

The storm blew itself out finally after two long days of rain. Everyone was glad to get free of the enforced leisure of drowsy hours spent huddled near the hearths in the great hall, and the ward was a-bustle that morning when Cullyn went out just to be going out, walking in the fresh and rain-washed air. He was strolling across the ward, aiming for the main gates merely to have a goal, but about halfway there he paused, struck by some odd observation that for a moment he couldn’t identify. Someone he’d passed, back by the wash-house, was somehow out of place. He turned back and saw a young man he vaguely recognized, Bryc by name, one of the undergrooms, but he was carrying a load of firewood, and his walk was wrong, not the shuffle or scramble of a servant, but the confident stride of a warrior. Cullyn hesitated only a moment before following him. Sure enough, Bryc carried the anomalous firewood right past first the wash-house, then the cookhouse as well. There was no other building where that firewood might belong between him and the outer walls.

Cullyn stayed with him until the lad passed the armoury, then ducked into it, ran down to the door at the far end, and opened it a crack to look out. His hunch paid off. Bryc was indeed looking back to see if anyone was following him, but he did not notice that the armoury door was ever so slightly open. When he angled round a shed towards the broch complex, Cullyn slipped out and followed at a good distance, keeping close to the shadows of the various buildings. The lad never glanced back again until he reached the low brick wall that separated the gwerbret’s formal garden from the work-a-day rest of the ward. Cullyn hid in a doorway as Bryc unceremoniously dumped his load of firewood, looked cautiously around him, then leapt over the wall. As Cullyn went after, Bryc hurried across the lawn, where, some distance away, little Rhodda, Rhodry’s illegitimate daughter and only heir, played with a leather ball while her nursemaid, Tevylla, sat and sewed on a small stone bench. There was absolutely no reason for Bryc to be in the garden at all.

With an oath, Cullyn drew his sword and broke into a run. He leapt the wall just as the fellow made a grab at the child. Screaming, Tevylla jumped up and hurled her sewing scissors at his head – a miss, but he had to duck and lost a precious moment. As he charged across the lawn, Cullyn saw that Bryc had a dagger and that he was swinging down.

‘Run, lass!’

Rhodda twisted away and dodged as Bryc spun around, saw Cullyn coming, and turned to flee. Tevylla grabbed the leather ball and threw it under his feet. Down he went just as the captain reached him. He grabbed Bryc by the shirt, hauled him up, and broke his wrist with the flat of his sword. The dagger spun down to the grass. He kicked it far out of his prisoner’s reach.

‘Thanks be to the gods!’ Tevylla snatched it up. ‘Cullyn, I’m so glad you were right there.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You seemed to be handling things pretty well on your own.’

Tevylla shot him a weary sort of smile, then tucked the dagger into her kirtle and scooped Rhodda up. The child herself was oddly calm, only a bit pale as she stared at her rescuer for a moment, then turned in her nurse’s arms to look at the whimpering Bryc.

‘Get him,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘He’s nasty.’

The lad screamed, twisted in the captain’s grasp, then threw himself this way and that in sincere pain while he screamed over and over again. When Cullyn, utterly startled, let him go he fell to the ground full-length and writhed and screamed the more.

‘Stop it!’ It was Nevyn, racing across the lawn. ‘Stop it right now, all of you! Rhodda, you wretched little beast!’

Sobbing and gasping for breath, Bryc flopped onto his stomach and hid his face in folded arms. Cullyn realized that the lad’s arms and face were nicked and bleeding, as if a hundred cats had been clawing at him. While Tevylla stepped back in horror, Rhodda giggled and snickered until Nevyn glared her into silence.

‘Never ever do that again,’ the old man said.

‘But he had a knife. He was nasty, Gran.’

‘I know. I saw it all from the window. You waited until he was helpless, and that’s dishonourable. Well, didn’t you?’

The child hung her head in shame.

‘What a sweet little poppet you have in your charge, Mistress Tevylla,’ Nevyn said. ‘She’s Rhodry’s daughter, sure enough.’

‘She’s a handful at times, truly, but here, good sir, you can’t be saying that she did all that.’ Tevylla pointed with one clog at the bleeding man on the ground.

‘You’ll have to take it on faith that she did, and you too, captain. Come here, Rhodda. I’m going to talk to you, and then we’re all going to go see your grandmother. Cullyn, drag that young dog along to the great hall.’

When Nevyn left, Tevylla started after, but the old man irritably waved her away. Trembling a little, as if the shock had finally just caught up to her, she lingered to watch while Cullyn knelt down, grabbing Bryc by the shoulders and flopping him over like a caught fish. In his pain the lad cried out and stared up at the captain in bewilderment. Something was wrong with Bryc’s eyes, or so Cullyn thought of it. He’d never seen any man look so bewildered, so utterly lost and confused, as if his very eyes themselves had clouded over until he stared without truly seeing a thing.

‘Here, lad, have you gone blind?’

‘Not at all, but captain, where am I? My wrist!’ Whimpering from the effort, he held up his broken hand and stared at the blood running. ‘Did I fall? Did the dogs do this to me? What is this?’ His voice rose to an utterly sincere hysterical wail. ‘Tell me, for the love of the gods! What am I doing here like this?’

Cullyn grabbed him again, but this time to steady him.

‘Hold your tongue, lad. I’ll explain in a bit. Can you stand? We’ve got to go see old Nevyn about this.’

‘The herbman? Oh, truly.’ His voice was a bare whisper. ‘It was like being asleep, then waking.’

‘Indeed? Well, come along. You’re safe now.’

Even though he’d spoken without thinking, Cullyn suddenly went cold, knowing that he’d told the truth, that Bryc had been in as much danger as the child. Tevylla caught her breath in a gasp.

‘How do you fare, lass?’ Cullyn said.

‘Well enough, captain. I just remembered somewhat.’

‘And it was?’

‘I won’t tell anyone but Nevyn, but I think me I’d best tell him straightaway.’

Since as regent it was one of Lovyan’s duties to administer the laws of the gwerbretrhyn, Nevyn had her convene their private hearing in the chamber of justice, yet they were a scruffy little crew among the splendours. On the wall hung the dragon banners of Aberwyn and the golden sword of justice; the massive oak table and the high-backed gwerbretal chair stood on a floor made of slate tiles, inlaid in a key pattern, but Lovyan perched on the edge of the chair with Rhodda in her lap while Nevyn had Bryc sit on the table itself so that he could bind the lad’s wrist as everyone gave their testimony. To Lovyan’s right Tevylla sat on a low bench with Cullyn hovering behind her. Once the testimony was over, the tieryn gave her granddaughter a little squeeze.

‘Oh ye gods,’ Lovyan said. ‘It seems obvious this lad tried to kill our Rhodda, and yet somewhat makes me doubt his guilt.’

‘Quite so, Your Grace,’ Nevyn said. ‘To be precise, his body was being used for the attempt, but his soul and mind are blameless. Now Tevva, what’s this urgent story you have to tell?’

‘This morning when I woke, my lord, I had what I thought was a strange dream. Have you ever had one of those dreams where you think you’re wide awake? Our chamber, Rhodda’s cot, the hearth – it all looked exactly right, and dawn was coming in the window, but when I tried to move, I couldn’t, and I realized that I was still asleep.’

‘Dreams of that sort do happen.’ Nevyn finished binding the lad’s wrist and turned to look at her. ‘What came after?’

‘I dreamt there was a witch in the chamber with me. My Mam used to say that a witch could draw out your soul and put it into a little jar. I laughed, then, but this morning, I felt just that, like someone was trying to steal my soul.’

Nevyn felt that weary sort of annoyance that comes from seeing your worst fear confirmed.

‘How did you fight this witch off?’

‘I don’t know.’ She looked profoundly embarrassed. ‘I couldn’t move to give the sign of warding, and I couldn’t even really see where the witch was. I just knew that she was there with me. So, I … well, I just sort of pushed back. I called on the Goddess to protect me, and pushed the witch away. Does that make any sense, my lord?’

‘It does to me, Mistress Tevva. Just one thing, though. That witch was more likely to be a man than a woman. You see, our enemies were trying to do to you what they eventually did to Bryc. They can take over a person’s body for a little while, if he’s weak enough, and use it like their own.’

Bryc moaned, tears starting in his eyes.

‘Your Grace,’ he said to the tieryn. ‘I never would have. Never would I have hurt the lass. Please believe me.’

Lovyan flicked Nevyn a questioning glance.

‘I believe him, Your Grace. Now that I know what they’re doing, I can put a stop to it, too. If I may make suggestions, Your Grace?’

‘Of course.’

‘Two things. Bryc needs to be sent away – not out of blame, mind, but for his sake.’ He turned to the heart-sick boy. ‘They’ve made a link with you now, lad, and they might try to use it again. If they’re successful, this time they’ll kill you. Do you understand? They’ll use you, then toss you aside.’

His face pale, Bryc nodded a slow agreement.

‘The other thing is, the captain should be the child’s bodyguard from now on. Whenever you go outside, Mistress Tevva, you take him along with you. I can’t imagine anyone taking over Cullyn’s mind.’

‘No more can I,’ Cullyn said. ‘I agree with Nevyn, Your Grace. Since they can’t work their stinking trickery anymore, they might send someone in here with a sword.’

‘Done, then.’ Lovyan gave them each a firm nod. ‘And as for you, Rhodda, you obey the captain’s orders from now on.’

‘I will, Granna.’

Everyone smiled, doting on the pretty little lass because she was such a welcome relief from the dark things around them. Only Nevyn knew that the child was touched by strange magicks, that thanks to the elven blood she’d inherited from her father, not only could she see the Wildfolk, she also could command them. Poor Bryc’s scratched and bruised face made it clear that she had a good streak of elven vengefulness, too. Even with all his other worries and burdens weighing him down, Nevyn knew that he’d have to scrape out a little time for her.

That night, his worries pressed heavily upon him. Just after sunset he went up to his high chamber and threw open the shutters to let in the brisk autumn air. The evening was so brilliantly clear that he could see far beyond the town down to the harbour, where the ghostly white wave-foam mirrored the stars just coming out in the velvet dark sky. Distantly he heard the booming of the bronze bell at Manannan’s temple, announcing that the gwerbret’s men were raising the iron chain to close the harbour for the night. In town, a few dogs barked in answer, and the dark was pricked or slashed here and there by a lantern bobbing down a street or a crack of light from a window. At the sight of the stars and the rising moon some of his weariness ebbed away, and he stood there for some minutes, leaning on the sill and thinking of very little, until a soft knock at his chamber door roused him. With a muttered apology, Elaeno slipped in, shutting the door softly behind him. It always amazed Nevyn that the enormous Bardekian moved as gracefully and quietly as a cat.

‘I was just taking a look at our prisoner,’ Elaeno said. ‘He seems much better today. It looks like he’s mending cursed fast. That fever he had should have killed an ordinary man … well, not that I’m any sort of a chirurgeon.’

‘Oh, I agree with your diagnosis well enough. Did you look at his aura?’

‘I did, and it seems a good bit stronger. I can’t get over that peculiar colour, a mucky sort of green it is, with those odd purplish stripes and specks.’

‘I’ve never seen one like it before, truly. Well, let’s go down and have a look at him. If he’s well enough, we’ll try a working. Let me just put together the herbs and things I need.’

The prisoner in question was housed in a small chamber in one of the half-towers that clustered round the main broch. Outside his door stood an armed guard, because Lord Perryn of Alobry had been until his recent capture one of the worst horse-thieves in the kingdom, an offence punishable by a public hanging after a public flogging. He had committed another, more serious crime as well, but Nevyn was keeping that a secret for several good reasons. The summer before, Perryn had abducted and raped Cullyn of Cerrmor’s only daughter, Jill, but he’d done it by a muddled dweomer in circumstances so unusual that Nevyn had no idea of whether or not he were a criminal or a victim of some peculiar spell. Although the matter would require more study before he reached his conclusions, if Cullyn found out, Perryn wouldn’t live long enough to be studied. As it was, he’d nearly died already from a consumption of the lungs brought on by his misuse of his instinctive magical powers.

That evening, though, he did seem much recovered, a peculiarity in itself. As Elaeno had said, that consumption was severe enough to have killed an ordinary human being. Nevyn was beginning to suspect that Perryn was far from ordinary, and, in fact, perhaps not truly human at all. On the tall side, Perryn was a skinny, nondescript sort of young man, with dull red hair and blue eyes, a flattish nose, and an overly generous mouth. At the moment he was also deathly pale, his eyes still rheumy as he sat up in bed and coughed into an old rag. When the two dweomermen came in, he looked up, whimpered under his breath, and shrank back against the heap of pillows behind him.

‘Still coughing up blood?’ Nevyn said.

‘None, my lord. Er, ah, well, is that all right?’

‘It’s a very good sign, actually. Will you stop cowering and snivelling like a wretched field mouse? I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘But when are they going to come to … er, you know … hang me?’

‘Not until I tell them to, and if you do exactly as I say, they may not hang you at all.’

Perryn arranged a totally unconvinced smile.

‘I see you ate a good dinner. Do you feel like getting up and getting dressed?’

‘Whatever you say, my lord.’

‘I want to know how you feel.’

‘Well enough, then.’ Perryn threw back the covers and swung himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. In his long white night-shirt he looked like some impossibly awkward stork. ‘Er, ah, I’m a bit light-headed.’

‘That’s to be expected. Elaeno, hand him his clothes, will you?’

Once Perryn was dressed Nevyn sat him down in a chair right by the charcoal brazier, which was heaped with glowing coals. He’d brought with him a small cloth sack filled with chips of cedar, juniper, and a strange Bardek wood with a sweet but clean scent called sandalwood. Casually he strewed the chips over the coals, where they began to smoke in a concatenation of scent.

‘Just somewhat to cleanse the stale humours from the air,’ Nevyn said, lying cheerfully. ‘Ah, we’ve got some good coals. I always like to look into a fire. It always seems that you can see pictures in the coals, doesn’t it?’

‘So it does.’ Automatically Perryn looked at the lambent flames and the gold-and-ruby palaces among the heaped-up sticks and knobs. ‘When I was a lad I used to see dragons crawling in the fire. My Mam had lots of tales about dragons and elves and suchlike. I used to wish they were real.’

‘It would be pretty, truly.’

Nodding a little, Perryn stared into the brazier while the sweet smoke drifted lazily into the room. When Nevyn opened up the second sight, he noted with a certain professional pleasure that the lad’s aura had expanded to normal from the shrunken size it had been during his illness. The Seven Stars were glowing brightly, but they were all oddly coloured and slightly displaced from their proper positions. Nevyn sent a line of light from his own aura to the Star that drifted over Perryn’s forehead and made it swirl, slapping it like a child lashes a top with a whip.

‘You see pictures in the coals now, don’t you, lad?’ Nevyn whispered. ‘Tell me what you see. Tell me everything you see.’

‘Just a fire. A leaping fire.’ Perryn sounded as if he were drunk. ‘Big logs. It must be winter.’

‘Who’s nearby? Who’s sitting at the hearth?’

‘Mam and Da. Mam looks so pale. She’s not going to die, is she?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Four. She is going to die. I heard Uncle Benoic yelling at the herbman last night. I don’t want to go live with him.’

‘Then go back, go back to the fall of the year. Do you see your Mam? Is she better?’

‘She is.’

‘Then go back, go back further, to the spring.’

‘I see the meadow, and the deer. The hunters are coming. I’ve got to help them, warn them.’

‘The hunters?’

‘The stag. He’s my friend.’

In his trance Perryn twitched, his mouth working, as he went running into that meadow of memory and chased the deer away before the hunters came. Nevyn supposed that his childish mercy had cost the little lad a good beating, too. He took him back further, to the winter before, and back again until Perryn saw the face of his wet nurse as she held him to her breast for the first time. And back further, to the pain of his birth, and back yet more, as his soul was swept into the unborn body that grew into the one he now wore, and back and back, until all at once he cried out, twisting in pain, speaking, half-choked, in some language that Nevyn had never heard before.

‘By every god!’ Elaeno hissed. ‘What is that tongue?’

Nevyn held up his hand for silence. Perryn talked on, his voice gasping as he relived his last death. Even though his facial features had changed not a jot, he no longer looked like the weaselly lad he had moments before – stronger, somehow, his eyes blazing in an ancient hatred as he spat out angry words. At the end his body jerked, half-rising from the chair, then falling back as his voice broke off. Nevyn caught him by the shoulders and shook him, but gently, calling out his name until he awakened.

‘My apologies,’ Perryn stammered. ‘I must have fallen asleep or suchlike, looking at the fire. Ye gods, that was a miserable dream.’

‘Indeed? Tell me about it.’

‘I was skewered. A spear, you see, right through me, pinning me to the ground, and there were enemies, mocking me. Horrible, horrible enemies, like goblins or suchlike.’ He let his voice fade to a whisper. ‘They had these big noses and bushy eyebrows, all black and bristly.’ Suddenly he shook himself. ‘I must have been remembering one of those tales my Mam used to tell me.’