Crown of Dreams (13 page)

It was all taking too long. There had to be another way out.

She stopped to catch her breath and looked thoughtfully at Morgan Le Fay’s body. Could she summon the witch’s spirit, and trick her aunt into using her dark magic to make the rocks at the entrance collapse again? She shook her head. No, there was too much danger they would fall on her this time, and she no longer had the Crown or the mirror to do the summoning.

She clenched her fists. She hadn’t come so far to die here alone in the dark.
Think, Rhianna, think.

In the silence, she heard a faint dripping overhead. Of course – water! There had been a river outside the cave and a waterfall feeding it. Where had that water come from, if not out of the mountain?

With new hope, she worked her way back across the lair, stopping every few steps to listen carefully. When a drop of water landed on her cheek, her heart beat faster. She hitched up her chain and, carefully feeling for every hand and foothold, began to climb the rubble towards the sound.

“Don’t fall,” she muttered. “Just don’t fall.”

She climbed higher, glad that she couldn’t see the void beneath her. After what seemed
forever, she felt damp rock under her bare toes. Having no boots actually helped, and she laughed. That bloodbeard had done her a favour, taking them from her. But the rock here was more unstable. A whole handful came away, and she slid back down the rubble.

She pressed her face to the cliff, listening to the thud of her heart and the patter of stones falling into the depths of the mountain. The tinkling sounded louder now, coming from above – the music of Avalon. Hardly daring to believe, she looked up and saw a watery sunbeam shining though a small hole in the rock.

“Elphin…” she whispered.

She scrambled up the rest of the way and pressed her face to the hole. She sucked at the sweet, bright air and punched her fist through.
A great slab of rock went sliding away in a rush of green water.

She squinted into the sunlight. She had emerged at the top of the waterfall, which tumbled down into a flooded valley. Four tiny horses picked their way upriver towards the blocked entrance to the cave. Two of the horses trotted on the surface of the water, leaving trails of mist, the one in front ridden by a small figure with a shining harp. The third horse splashed and stumbled over the avalanched rocks behind them, carrying Cai with his lance. Sandy swam riderless behind.

Rhianna’s heart lifted. She waved her arms.

“Elphin! Cai! Up here!”

But the roar of the waterfall drowned her voice. She looked at the slippery rocks leading down beside it and shook her head. She’d done
enough mountain climbing for one day.

She pinched her nose and made a leap through the water into the sunlight.

Wind whistled in her ears…. trees flashed past… water roared around her… and she entered the river with a splash. She barely had time to take a breath, and she’d forgotten the chain, which weighed her down. But the thought of Mordred on his way to Camelot with the Crown of Dreams kept her going. She kicked strongly for the surface and came up gasping for air. She managed to grab a rock before her armour and the chain could drag her back down again. Clinging on with one arm, she gulped handfuls of the cold, clear water and laughed.

“I’m still alive, cousin!” she yelled. “Do you hear me? I’m alive!”

Small hooves, glinting with Avalonian silver, trotted towards her over the water. A soft nose lowered and sniffed at her.
You are very wet
, observed her mist horse.
Evenstar’s rider is worried. He thinks you are buried inside the dragon’s hill.

Rhianna wiped hair out of her eyes and blinked up at the cliff she’d jumped from. It was higher than she’d thought. Down here, she could barely hear Elphin’s music over the noise of the water.

She laughed again. “Help me out, my beautiful one,” she said.

The mare obligingly let Rhianna catch hold of her tail, trotted to the bank and pulled her out of the river. Rhianna lay in the mud, too exhausted to move, staring up at the sky. She
felt like going to sleep. Then Alba whinnied, and the music stopped. Elphin’s six-fingered hand pushed the mare’s muzzle out of the way. His anxious face stared down at her.

“Rhia?” he whispered, his eyes the deepest purple she’d ever seen them. “Where does it hurt?”

“All over,” she groaned, which was true. Now that she was out of the dragon’s lair, every muscle ached and her cuts and bruises had begun to throb.

Elphin touched a bruise on her cheek with gentle fingers. His purple gaze took in the chain still locked about her ankle. “Don’t move, Rhia. You might have broken something. I’ll play my harp for you.”

Cai’s flushed face appeared on her other side.

“Damsel Rhianna!” he gasped. “What did Mordred do to you? We were really worried when we found Alba. We’ve been tracking you for days! Elphin’s good at it, but there was some magic at work around those stones. Then the river flooded, and those sneaky bloodbeards hid their trail in the water. We only knew this was the right valley when we found poor Sandy trying to swim down it. Elphin used his magic to find the path around the waterfall, but when we saw the avalanche behind it we thought the worst… how did you escape?”

“Cai,” she said, coughing up water. “Now you’re making my ears hurt! I heard your music coming through the water and climbed out, of course… you didn’t see my father’s ghost then? I sent him to find you.”

The boy shook his head.

Rhianna sighed. Obviously, the magic of the Lance alone wasn’t strong enough to make the king’s ghost visible to her friends.

“Never mind, I expect he’s around somewhere. You found me, and that’s the main thing… don’t fuss, Elphin.” She pushed her friend’s harp away. “I’m all right. The last thing I want is to fall asleep now.
How
long did you say you’d been tracking me?”

“Three days,” Cai said. “And a night.”

Rhianna struggled to her feet. Were three days enough for Mordred to get to Camelot with an army and break through the gates? It had taken them and the knights three days to ride here the long way.

“We’ve got to hurry!” She swayed on her feet, but clutched Alba’s mane before Elphin could make her lie back down again. “Where
are Sir Lancelot and the others?”

“Dunno.” Cai bit his lip and glanced at Elphin. “Still looking for us, I expect. Elphin wouldn’t wait for them. He said they’d slow us down, and we had to find you before Mordred killed you.”

Rhianna looked back at the collapsed cave and shuddered. “He left me in there to die,” she said. “But it takes more than a few rocks to kill me.”

She tried to vault into Alba’s saddle and tripped over the chain. Elphin pressed his lips together, closed one hand around the manacle and played a ripple on his harp with the other. Sweat sprang out on his brow. The metal sparkled and melted from her foot.

Rhianna stared at the shining puddle in the grass and let him help her up on her mare.
“Your magic’s getting stronger,” she said. “You couldn’t do that for my mother’s chain in the summer.”

“He’ll do any kind of magic for you,” Cai muttered. “Where are your boots?”

“Buried in the shadrake’s lair somewhere, I expect – I’m not going back for them now.” She turned Alba impatiently. “We have to find Excalibur and the knights and get back to Camelot as soon as we can. Mordred’s got the Crown of Dreams. If we don’t stop him, he’s going to destroy my father’s jewel and all its secrets, and use the crown to wipe King Arthur’s name from history!”

S
ince none of them knew which way the knights had gone, they decided to look for Excalibur first. If they returned to the place where the shadrake had attacked her friends, Rhianna thought she would remember the way
to the red dragon’s lair from there. She wasn’t sure what they would do if they found the shadrake waiting for them, but she’d think of something.

Elphin and Cai wanted to know everything, of course. What Mordred had said to her, and exactly how she’d escaped. As they trotted back downriver, Rhianna told them most of it. She didn’t tell them how scared she’d been when the roof collapsed, or what her father’s ghost had said about his jewel containing something about the Grail. She wanted to ask Merlin about that, if the silly bird ever turned up again.

“So the Crown killed Morgan Le Fay?” Elphin said thoughtfully. “I wonder why?”

“Because she’s an evil witch, of course,” Cai said. “I hope it kills Mordred as well! Chaining Damsel Rhianna in the dark like that and
leaving her to die… just wait till I see the traitor again! I’ll knock him off his horse and chain
him
in the dark, see how he likes it.” He swung his lance around to demonstrate, and Rhianna ducked.

“Careful,” she said, laughing as her armour glittered in response. “Or Mordred will be out of a job.”

Cai flushed. “Sorry.”

“Your armour must have saved your life in that cave,” Elphin said. “A good thing those bloodbeards didn’t take that off you as well as your shield and your boots. Maybe Father’s smith put more magic into it than we thought.”

“A good thing she wasn’t carrying Excalibur, you mean,” Cai said. “Or Mordred would have the Sword of Light now, never mind the Crown.”

“If I’d had Excalibur, his men would never have captured me in the first place, you dolt!” Rhianna said with a smile. She frowned at a track that led away from the river up into the hills. “This way.”

“Are you sure?” Cai said.

“Of course I’m sure. I’ve been this way before.”

When she closed her eyes, she could see the cave with its rocky finger as clearly as when she’d worn the Crown of Dreams and spiritridden the shadrake. The only trouble was, everything looked different from the ground. Trees and hills kept getting in the way.

“What if the dragon doesn’t want to give Excalibur back when we get there?”

“Then you’ll have to prove you can use that lance you carry, won’t you?” she said, wishing
the boy would shut up for once and let her concentrate.

Cai went quiet.

They rode in silence for a while. Around them, the woods steamed in the sun, reminding Rhianna of the dragons flaming the knights. She felt a bit guilty when she thought of how worried they must be about her. But once she got Excalibur back, she might be able to use its magic to let them know she was all right.

Recognising another landmark, she urged Alba into a canter. Cai kept up well enough on the big grey, and even Sandy didn’t get left too far behind without a rider to carry. But it was obviously going to take them longer to reach the dragon’s lair than it had taken the shadrake to fly there. The sun was going down behind the hills by the time they reached the old stone
circle where the bloodbeards had captured her.

She slowed Alba, her neck prickling in memory. She had a sense of being watched… then something small and feathered zipped past her ear.

Rhianna’s hand flew to her empty scabbard. Remembering she didn’t have Excalibur, she drew her rusty dagger and stared at the shadows between the stones looking for an enemy. But this time it was not a bloodbeard arrow. Instead, a small, blue-grey falcon landed on the end of Cai’s lance.

“It’s Merlin!” Cai said, nearly dropping the lance as his horse danced sideways.

Alba shook her silver mane.
He nearly made me mist
, the mare snorted.

Rhianna scowled at the bedraggled little bird in a mixture of relief and annoyance.
“Merlin! Where have you
been
?”

The merlin opened its beak and screeched at her.

She shook her head, amused. “It’s no good scolding me – I can’t hear a word you’re saying. You’ll have to wait until I’ve got Excalibur back.”

The merlin kept on scolding. Cai blinked at it in surprise. “He says you’re a very foolish girl, and you’re lucky your soul’s not trapped in Annwn with Morgan Le Fay’s by now,” he reported. “Spirit-riding a dragon is dangerous enough, let alone a shadrake!”

Elphin nodded. “He’s right about that, Rhia.”

The shining spear lets the bird talk to the human boy
, Alba informed her.

She made a face, feeling a bit left out.
“Just because
he
couldn’t manage it…” she muttered, remembering how the druid had tried to borrow the shadrake’s body after Morgan Le Fay had ambushed them when they first came over from Avalon.

The merlin screeched again, and Cai’s eyes went wide. “Oh Damsel Rhianna, this is bad! He says Mordred’s used the Crown to call an army of ghosts out of Annwn and is crossing the Summer Sea. Opening the dark Gate caused a flood, so he can take his boats right across the marshes. They’ll be at Camelot by tonight.”

A chill went through Rhianna. “Let me talk to him,” she said. She held out her wrist for the merlin, but it refused to leave Cai’s lance, which glittered faintly in the last of the sun.

“Mordred must be taking a short cut,”
Elphin’s eyes whirled violet. “We might be able to catch him on our mist horses. But if the roads are flooded, the knights will have to go the long way round – their horses can’t gallop over water like Alba and Evenstar can.” He listened to the druid again. “Merlin says the knights headed back to the border so they wouldn’t get trapped in Dragonland by the floods. We should go and meet them, Rhia.”

She looked back the way they had come and gathered up Alba’s reins. “No. I can’t fight Mordred without Excalibur.”

“But what if
we
get trapped in Dragonland?” Cai wailed.

“Alba and Evenstar won’t get trapped,” she said impatiently. “You’ll just have to wait here with Sandy until the roads are open again.”

Cai paled.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Elphin said, fingering the spiral pathfinder around his neck. “Merlin, does this stone circle work like the one at Camelot?”

The bird cocked its head and eyed the stones. It fluffed up its feathers and chattered something. Cai looked a bit relieved.

Elphin nodded. “He says it’s very old and some of the stones are broken, but it still has power. Between us, we might be able to use it to open the spiral path and transport the knights through to Camelot’s circle before Mordred gets there.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Rhianna said. “Someone go and fetch the knights, while I get my sword back from that dragon.”

Of course Elphin and Cai refused to let her face the dragons alone, and started an argument over who should stay to protect her. In the end, they decided to send Merlin back to the knights with the message. Cai wrote it on a piece of bark, with much advice from the merlin and face-pulling, while Rhianna fiddled with Alba’s mane and stared impatiently at the hills.

“You don’t have to write a song,” she said. “Just tell them to follow my merlin to the stone circle and meet us there. At this rate, Mordred will be sitting on the throne of Camelot before you’re finished.”

“Writing’s more difficult than you think, Damsel Rhianna,” Cai said with a frown. “I can’t remember how to spell all the words.”

“Does that matter?” She glanced at Elphin.

“Don’t look at me, Rhia,” her friend said.
“Writing’s a human thing. In Avalon we just have our songs, and they’re hard enough to learn.”

Rhianna sighed. She must ask Arianrhod to teach her how to read and write when they got back to Camelot. If Arianrhod was still alive after Mordred had finished with her.

She clenched her fist on her empty scabbard and tried to be patient with the squire.

Eventually, after more finger-pecking and scolding from Merlin, Cai was finished. He rolled up the message and tied it to the bird’s leg. The little hawk fixed Rhianna with a blue-eyed stare and gave a final screech. Then he took off and flew away over the treetops.

Rhianna watched him go with mixed feelings. “What did he say?” she asked, pushing Alba into a canter.

“Never mind,” Elphin said. “Let’s hurry up and get Excalibur back before it gets dark. Which way now?”

Rhianna pointed to the mountains, and they set off again.

The track wound up and up, disappearing into shadow and then emerging into the light again. Rhianna wondered if she’d got the wrong mountain. But as the sun began to set, she saw the finger of rock standing against the red sky, just as she’d seen it through the shadrake’s eyes. Thankfully, there was no sign of the shadrake or the red dragon it had been fighting.

Relief filled her. “That’s it!” she said, pushing Alba into a gallop. “The lair’s up there!”

“Wait for us, Rhia!” Elphin called behind her. “The dragon might be at home.”

Cai’s horse and Sandy got left behind on the steep slope, but Rhianna did not slow her pace. Evenstar raced at her side, a blur of white and mist. Her friend struggled with his bag as they galloped, trying to free his harp and ride at the same time.

As Alba clattered up the final rocks, she smiled grimly and drew the little dagger she’d stolen from the shadrake’s treasure. She paused at the cave mouth.

It smells bad in there
, her mare snorted.

“I know, my darling. You should have smelled the shadrake’s lair.”

I am glad I did not
, Alba said.
You still stink of it.

Rhianna grimaced as she headed the little
horse into the cave. She planned on riding straight in. But as the rock closed over her head, her heart began to thud and her breath came faster. She halted Alba and stared into the mountain, clutching her dagger in a suddenly sweaty fist as memories crowded in.

Chained in the dark… boulders falling all around…