Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (50 page)

And they had answered her.

He’d almost died that night. Without Madron
he might have breathed his last. He touched the phial still nested
in his tunic. ’Twas a slim guard against dragons, yet he would have
them come.

Aye, he would have them come and know his
fate. Ddrei Goch and Ddrei Glas—their names alone quickened the
heat beneath his skin.

He took Llynya’s hand in his, letting her
feel the pulsing warmth. “We are bound,
cariad
, but I would
not have you be part of this. If Morgan’s falling comes upon you
again, I’ll be with you, but if the dragons come and their desire
is to rage against me, the weir may be the only safe place. You saw
as well as I how Trig broke Rhuddlan’s seals on the tunnels leading
to the great Weir. If the need arises, take your mystery path back
to Yr Is-ddwfn.”

Llynya looked at him and nodded. Aye, if the
need arose, she would take the path to Yr Is-ddwfn and pray that
Morgan did not call out for her as she traversed the narrow trail
down the wormhole. For certes she would be lost then, her wish
granted with one misstep. But if such dire need arose, and the
dragons were ravening beasts come for Mychael’s blood, she was
taking him down the worm’s throat with her.

“Come,” she said. “Before we meet dragons, we
must first get through the ice.” Thus she turned and led him into
the frozen wasteland.

“N
o time. No time,”
Caerlon muttered as he strode down a long tunnel leading to
Rastaban’s dungeons, carrying a fully laden pack and a short whip
of braided leather. With each stride, he tapped the whip against
the side of his leg. ’Twas the one thing the skraelings understood,
the crack of the lash. Beasts.

As the time for battle had grown nearer, the
skraelpacks had grown more mutinous and unruly—and hungry, always
hungry. They were eating him out of rats, and Slott, dear Slott,
was eating him out of skraelings. There was no time to waste. No
time to lose, or his whole army would be naught but troll
droppings.

“No time. No time.” His mutterings took on a
singsong quality as he hefted the pack higher on his shoulder. “No
time to lose.”

He came to a fork in the tunnel and took the
long curve of stairs leading into the lower dungeons. His light
steps made nary a sound on the cold hard stone. At the bottom of
the stairwell, a wide corridor opened to the south. Cells lined
either side of the passageway, cells for branding, cells for
racking, cells for shackling, cells for slow roasting—the
skraelings’ favorite. By the end of the Wars of Enchantment, there
had been damn little enchantment, only the grisly horrors of
battles and death.

Caerlon passed them all, heading toward a
small holding cell at the end of the corridor. The iron bars of its
door grated against the stone floor as he pulled it open. Tufts of
old rush were scattered about the interior, a thin comfort to any
who might be incarcerated in its gloomy depths.

He held his dreamstone high and passed the
light over the far wall, looking for the curved incision in the
rock that marked the door he sought. Even knowing where it was,
’twas difficult to find.

There, he thought, spying a crack in the
stone. He stepped forward and smoothed his hand along the curve. At
its apex, he pushed and felt the inner latch give way. The door
swung open.

A dizzying sight greeted him, one that never
failed to delight, the abyss of Rastaban’s oubliette stretching out
below in all its bleak, black glory. From the landing where he
stood, stairs swirled around and down the sheer-sided granite
walls, ending in another stone landing that hung above a pool of
inky darkness measuring over a hundred feet across. Out of the
darkness thrust a single pillar of rock, the top of which was lit
by a shaft of soft golden light glittering with faerie dust, each
mote a testament to Caerlon’s courage and resolve. Fifty years he’d
spent in the wilderness collecting the stuff, searching every
sídhe
from Cymru to Eire.

The light that held the dust shot down from a
long rod of yellow dreamstone as thick as the trunk of an oak tree.
’Twas Tuan’s Stone, taken from the watery depths of the King’s Pool
in Lanbarrdein, the only treasure saved before the advancing
Quicken-tree had won the great cavern. Caerlon and his maimed
Dockalfar had unearthed it from its long hiding place in a cavern
south of Rastaban in the early summer, and embedded it in the land
above to act as a window between the surface world and the table of
rock jutting up out of the darkness, creating the perfect prison
for the perfect prisoner.

Dreamstone light and faerie dust. Could any
lovelier half-death be devised?

Caerlon thought not, but Ailfinn appeared
perfectly oblivious to the luxury of her prison, a testament to his
success. He had sacrificed for her. Indeed he had, baiting his trap
with the
Elhion Bhaas Le
. The trap was long sprung now and
the bait closed within, taken from him.

Nonetheless he smiled as he always did when
he looked upon Ailfinn. There she hung, suspended by light and air,
unable to reach the key to her freedom though it lay literally at
her feet. The irony of his teacher’s demise gave him nearly as much
pleasure as had the Indigo Book itself during all the years he’d
pored over its pages, searching for the manner of her downfall.

She looked a bit like a butterfly, her white
hair with its single, subtle stripe of gold twining upward into the
aureate light, her tawny, rune-marked cloak billowing about her
like wings, the sparkle of faerie dust giving her an ethereal air.
Her face was remarkably unlined for a woman of her great age. Some
female necromancy, no doubt, and vanity, for certes. Her eyes had
closed under his induced sleep, but he remembered them well, as
green as any of her beloved Quicken-tree’s, with thick golden
lashes.

Rotters. In his excitement, he’d forgotten to
bring her a piece of meat.

She never ate it, of course, wouldn’t have
even if she’d been in a condition to eat, but he liked to think the
stench of the decayed flesh he threw on the rock added to her
misery. She had a very delicate nose. Even trapped in a sleeping
death, he was sure she could smell the putridness of his
offerings.

As to his other prisoner, Caerlon was doing
his best not to offend him. The chains that held the young
Liosalfar to the lower landing’s wall were an undeniable offense,
but a necessary one. Caerlon hoped to make it up to him with the
food he’d brought: sweetcakes and honeycomb, mead and hazelnuts,
enough to restore the boy and tide him over for a sennight. By then
the Weir Gate would be secured, and Caerlon would have all the time
he wished, an eternity of it. Time to win, time to waste... time to
play.

He smiled again and started down the stairs.
A pale, eyeless lizard skittered across his path. “Tua,” the
Quicken-tree dared to call the reptiles, a deliberate insult to the
great king who had once ruled the rocky depths of all the caverns
from Anglesey to the Brecon Beacons.

So much had been lost.

So much more was about to be regained.

Caerlon and his army were off to war, his
captains above forming packs in the Eye of the Dragon for their
march to the Dangoes. There they would launch their ships into Mor
Sarff and make sail for the Weir Gate.

Deseillign had fallen, the Desert Queen
routed and fleeing to the east, beyond the roots of the mountains
and the known edge of her kingdom. The Dockalfar captains had
proven glorious in battle, holding the west against her and
bringing Caerlon the last great swordblade to come from the desert
smith’s forge—the Edge of Sorrow for the Magia Blade. Whatever
bargain the Lady might have made with Rhuddlan would be left
undone. The Blade and the Blade’s master were Caerlon’s now.

Lacknose had not returned from Riverwood,
presupposing defeat, and the Quicken-tree had fought Blackhand’s
pack to a draw on the causeway. Rhuddlan’s confidence would be
high, despite his captain’s defeat beneath Tryfan. And why not?
Caerlon thought with a flicker of disgust. The Quicken-tree still
had the aetheling—the one fly in his ointment.

This time, though, Rhuddlan’s confidence
would be his undoing. He would make for Rastaban, from whence all
his troubles had so far come, taking the quickest route, overland
through Riverwood. His instincts would drive him to Slott and the
Eye of the Dragon, while all of Rastaban would be making for the
Weir Gate with the Wyrm-master and the Magia Blade to call the
dragons.

Or most of the Magia Blade, Caerlon conceded.
He’d broken five precious rods of dreamstone trying to cobble a
sword grip onto the sorrowful edge, a difficult day’s work. In the
end, he’d settled for leather-wrapped wood embedded with roughly
smoothed cabochons of the broken crystals.

He drew on a level with Ailfinn and gave the
floating mage a glance. She looked a bit wan, but there was no help
for it. The dreamstone light had sustained her these many long
months, as it would sustain the Quicken-tree warrior for a time,
but Caerlon had never supposed that it would grant her life
indefinitely.

A few steps farther down, he came to the
landing. A stream of water trickled down the wall at its edge,
filling a small pool before it overflowed into the abyss. He’d
chained the boy close enough to the pool for him to drink and
splash his face, if that would give him pleasure.

“I’ve brought food,” he said, shrugging out
of the pack.

No sign of welcome lit the Liosalfar’s eyes,
no words of gratitude fell from his lips. He’d washed himself,
though. His face, scrubbed clean, was of a Quicken-tree’s
particular delicacy, slightly slanted green eyes and a fine nose
upturned at the end. He’d replaited his
fif
braid, and
Caerlon could almost hear the song he’d probably sung while doing
it...
pwr wa ladth, pwr wa ladth
.

Songs would not help him in the oubliette.
Caerlon had been careful to seal the prison against sacred sounds,
lest Ailfinn talk in her sleep and accidentally mutter an
incantation or two.

He knelt down and began emptying the
pack.

“I’ll be gone for a while, so I’ve brought
food for a sennight, mayhaps a sennight and a half, if you’re
careful.” Still nothing from the boy.

Caerlon wanted to touch him, badly, but held
himself to lifting a length of silky black hair. He got a murderous
look for his trouble.

“When I return, it will be as king of all you
hold dear, Shay. Mayhaps then we will parlay for your favors.”

A foul curse escaped the boy, an inadvertent
slip of the tongue as it were, and Caerlon laughed.

“Aye, that’s exactly what I had in mind. That
and more of the same, when I return.” A huskiness he couldn’t
control slipped into his voice. He let the strands of the
Liosalfar’s hair slide through his fingers and lowered his hand to
rest on the young warrior’s thigh. The muscles beneath his tunic
were hard and lean, his leg well formed.

The boy’s stony gaze shifted to Ailfinn.

“She can’t help you,” Caerlon said softly,
allowing his hand to slide beneath the tunic to bare skin, then to
the boy’s braies.

Shay’s gaze came back to him, blandly
indifferent, though sweat was breaking out on Caerlon’s brow and
upper lip. He pulled his hand back and swore silently to himself.
The indifference had cost the boy, he was sure.

The Liosalfar would not be easy to break—and
what Liosalfar was? But Shay would break, and he would break to
Caerlon’s hand.

In a single, fluid movement, he rose and
turned on his heel, leaving the pack behind. He took the stairs two
at a time up out of the oubliette and did not look back when he
closed the stone door. With nary a soul but a half-dead mage for
company, no doubt the Quicken-tree boy would be better pleased to
see him the next time he came.

No doubt.

Shay waited until he heard the stone door
grind closed before he gave in to a ripple of despair. He brought
one knee up from his cross-legged position and rested his forehead
on it with a pained breath.

Sticks
. With all else he had to bear,
his captor was a bugger.

The scent of honey came to him in his misery,
heartening him. His stomach growled, and he lifted his head. A
sennight, the Dark-elf had said, and Shay wondered if Caerlon truly
thought he was going to dispatch Rhuddlan and the gathering tribes
in seven days. For all that Wei had been forced to retreat from
Tryfan with his wounded, the skraelings had suffered the worst
losses.

He reached for the mead Caerlon had brought
and took a sip, pacing himself and eyeing his small store of food.
He took another sip, and his gaze drifted to the shaft of golden
light holding the darkness at bay.

He knew who she was, the lady in the light.
He’d known the instant he’d seen her, Ailfinn Mapp. How a few
Dark-elves and a bunch of skraelings had captured a Prydion Mage
was a mystery, but in the three days he’d been in Rastaban’s
deepest dungeon, Shay had come to think it might have something to
do with the large book at the woman’s feet.

Even as he watched, one of the thick
cream-colored pages lifted up into the light. It wavered for a
moment, bathed in glittering motes, then floated down to lie smooth
on the other side of the book—a page turned. ’Twas the fourth time
such had happened since he’d been chained to the landing, and ’twas
Ailfinn doing it. There was no wind in the oubliette. Though she
didn’t move herself, not so much as a finger twitch that he had
seen, the pages in the book were turning.

And that was where Shay’s hope lay.

“
Es sholei par es cant
,” he whispered
into the darkness. “
Pwr wa ladth. Pwr wa ladth
.”

Run deep. Run deep.