Crimson Fire (16 page)

“So you don’t know what happened to Cathbad?”

“I am not even sure he was still alive—I did not see a bull that was big enough to be the Archdruid.” He hated to think of Cathbad dead—either before or during the invasion, but it was a distinct possibility.

“Who was the dragon that
fl
ew with you?” Dinaswyn asked

abruptly, jarring him from that thought.

“I don’t know. A female, I think. And a Dewin, obviously.” “Of the House of Llyr?” she pressed.

“Perhaps.” “Arianrod?”

Gwydion snorted at the thought of his beautiful, sel
fi
sh

cousin. “Unlikely.” “Rhiannon ur Hefeydd?”

That made Gwydion very thoughtful indeed. It could have been Rhiannon. And if so, he would indeed see her again. Was there no end, then, to the cruelty of the Shining Ones?

“Possibly,” he said slowly.

She closed the Book of Dreams and put down the quill. She sat quietly for a moment, her eyes on the moon that rode the sky overhead. At last she rose and went to the door. But there she paused and looked back at him.

“The dreams are not easy. They never have been. They never will be. And what is coming is a horror like nothing we

have ever known. I remind you, then, of your promise to me. Do you remember it?”

“I do,” he said steadily. And he did. She had demanded that when the time came, he was to give her an important task, to stop pushing her aside, to make her life—and her death— mean something. He had promised to give her a task, but he had said he would not let it lead to her death. He loved her as much as he was able to love, she who was his aunt, she who had been his teacher.

“See that you keep it,” she said coldly. “Yes,” he said. It was all he could say.

Then she was gone, leaving Gwydion to begin his long grieving for the coming death of another brother and the en- slavement of Kymru.

Gwyntdydd, Lleihau Wythnos—early evening

A
LL DAY
G
WYDION
had kept to his tower. When Dinaswyn sent up food, he refused it, not even bothering to answer the knock on his study door.

He took no action, for there was nothing he could do. No matter what he did, no matter what he said or where he went, what he had dreamed would come true. All the twisting and turning and evasion he could muster would change nothing.

Uthyr would die. Kymru would be crushed. Nothing could prevent that.

Only two things gave him the slightest bit of hope. The
fi
rst

was the memory of the eagle, the symbol of the High King. The eagle had
fl
own free in his dream, borne away on the wings of the wind.

The second was the memory of the silver dragon that had

stood with him, confronting the boars. He did not know who that was—or, at any rate, he pretended that he was not sure. But the mere fact that he would not be alone was comforting.

Night once again fell over Caer Dathyl. Again he heard a knock on the door, but he did not even stir from his seat before the crackling
fi
re. The
fi
relight played over the silvery globes hanging from the ceiling, the rich bindings of the books that lined the walls, and the glowing silver symbols of the moon’s phases carved on the door.

“Gwydion,” Dinaswyn called through the closed door. “Let me in.”

He did not bother to answer. He reached out with his mind and ensured that the door would not open. He had no wish to speak to anyone. He wanted to be left alone.

But Dinaswyn would not take silence for an answer. The door crashed open, slamming up against the wall. He jumped to his feet and whirled around to face her.

But the angry words he was going to say died on his lips when he saw what was in her arms and realized what she had come for.

She entered the room, her silvery hair falling around her shoulders, bright against her black gown. Her gray eyes were cold and implacable. And in her arms she held a bundle of green wood.

“You need to know,” was all she said. And she was right, he did.

G
WYDION FIRMLY SHUT
the door of the Chamber of Dreams behind him. He carefully laid the green wood within the bra- zier next to his pallet. Overhead the stars were shining through

the glass roof, cold and clear and impossibly far away.

Dinaswyn was right. He did need to know. He needed to know all he could about the enemy. He needed to know just who the golden boar was, the man who would lead the armies of Corania. He needed to know what he could do to mitigate the destruction. Surely there must be something. Surely the Shining Ones would give him that much.

To know this thing, he must dream. He must search for a speci
fi
c dream, a speci
fi
c message from the gods. And to do so he would have to invite such a message.

Thus, he would have to undergo the mwg-breuddwyd, the smoke-dream. And hope that it would show him that which he needed to know.

He called
fi
re to the wood in the brazier. The green wood

began to smolder, and the room began to
fi
ll with smoke.

He lay down on the pallet, his hands beneath his head,
fi
lling his lungs with the wood-smoke. Usually the Y Dawnus endured the mwg-breuddwyd for as long as three days, but he did not think it would take that long to
fi
nd out what he needed to know.

He felt the messages waiting for him. He felt the presence of the Shining Ones. He felt that there were things in the billow- ing smoke that
fl
ickered and danced and waited for him.

He felt ready to Walk-Between-the-Worlds. He closed his eyes.

H
E WAS STANDING
on the surface of a huge map that
fl
oated in some unidenti
fi
able point in space. Stars glittered like diamonds all around him. Comets rushed by, spraying him with
fi
ery drops. Planets spun around him in their measured, uncaring dance.

Beneath his feet the country of Kymru stretched out before him. The
fi
ne, white sands and clear blue lakes of Ederynion glit- tered. The golden wheat
fi
elds and beehives of Rheged glowed. The green forests and purple vineyards of Prydyn gleamed. The craggy mountains and aeries of Gwynedd shimmered. And from the center rose the deserted hall of the High Kings, Cadair Idris. It was dark and silent, but it stood alert and ready.

The wide, blue ocean sprawled between Kymru and the Empire of Corania to the east. But it was obvious that the ex- panse of water was not suf
fi
cient to protect Kymru.

For a man stood like a beam of shining light, a map of the Coranian Empire beneath his feet. His golden hair glowed, and his cloak of red shone like fresh blood. In his hands he held threads of light, threads that stretched across the Coranian Em- pire, which he gathered one by one. With these threads he spun shapes that Gwydion was too far away to see. At that moment Gwydion understood he must know exactly what the man was doing if he was to save anything of Kymru, anything at all.

As the man gathered these threads, as he spun them into unknown shapes, he never once took his eyes off of Gwydion, who stood in faroff Kymru,
fi
erce hatred in his amber eyes.

And something else. A longing. A hunger. A terrible, terri- ble need—all the more terrible for not being fully understood.

With a chill Gywdion realized that he had seen the man before. It was in a dream, a dream of crossroads, a dream from nine years ago. In that dream the Golden Man had, by his choice at the crossroads, led them all down a dark path to de- struction and death.

Gwydion knew that he must go to the Coranian Empire, must somehow gain access to this Golden Man, must somehow

learn what the shapes were that were being made. But every time he tried to move, he found that he could not. There were fetters of silver around his ankles, chaining him to the land. He was trapped, unable to leave Kymru. He searched around wildly for the key to his chains, but saw nothing. He desperately pulled at his bonds, but he could not get free.

And then the cry of a dragon made him look up to the sky. She came to him, glittering with silver light as though she carried the beams of the moon in her blood. She had emerald

eyes.

And a key in her talons.

And he knew who she was. And he knew that she was the key—indeed, she had always been.

He knew that he must go to her. Together they would jour- ney to Corania and see what kind of victory they would be able to wrest from the Golden Man, who carried the desire for their death in his tawny eyes.

Coed Aderyn, Kingdom of Prydyn &

Cadair Idris, Gwytheryn, Kymru Collen Mis, 495

S

Gwaithdydd, Disglair Wythnos—late morning

he sat on the cold, stone
fl
oor before the ash-covered hearth, wrapped in a tattered blanket. She shivered, for in spite of the sunlight that streamed into the mouth of

the cave, she was cold. It seemed that she was always cold these days. She knew that she should light a
fi
re to take the chill out of the air, but she was too tired. It didn’t seem worth the effort. She would do it later.

There were so many things to do. And she would do them.

But not now. Later.

She should be hunting in the forest for deer and rabbits. She should be smoking meat for the winter, to carry her through the days when hunting would be scarce. She should be curing ani- mal skins so she would have something to trade in Dillys for the supplies she needed. She should be harvesting herbs and dry- ing them to use for both cooking and medicine. She should be doing any one of a hundred things to make sure that she would

survive the coming winter months in her cave deep in the forest of Coed Aderyn.

And yet she did none of them. But she would. Later.

How long had it been since that horrible day on Afalon? How long since the day that Amatheon had died; the day that she saw something die inside of Gwydion? With an effort she concentrated and realized it had been a little less than a year. Just a year since she, Gwydion, Amatheon, and the four Captains of Kymru had located Caladfwlch, the sword of the High Kings, on the forbidding Isle of Afalon. Just a year since Amatheon had been murdered while saving Gwydion’s life. Just a year since Gwydion had turned on her, accusing her of being responsible for his death, turning his back on her and walking away.

Just a year since her life had turned to dust and ashes.

Not that what had happened on Afalon had anything to do with that. It was what happened later that changed everything. She had grieved deeply for Amatheon, for she had loved him as a dear friend, and the fact that she would not hear his laughter, nor see the light in his blue eyes again, had brought her great pain. And she had grieved for the Captain of Ed- erynion, for Angharad had been in love with Amatheon. She had shrugged her shoulders over Gwydion’s accusations. She would show no one the pain that had caused her, for there had been something between she and Gwydion, although she still could not have fully identi
fi
ed exactly what it had been. What- ever it was, its loss was not enough to hurt her deeply, for she had known from the beginning that he was a dangerous man

and had guarded her heart.

So she had turned her back on him to return to Prydyn, to journey to Arberth in the company of Achren, Prydyn’s

Captain, her dearest friend. She had ridden to Arberth with a hopeful heart. Her daughter, Gwenhwyfar, was in Arberth, and Rhiannon was desperately eager to see her. She had not seen Gwen for some months, ever since leaving her in Rhoram’s care. She and Gwen had parted badly, it was true. But she was sure Gwen would have forgiven her by now, would have come to understand why she had been left behind.

Rhiannon had been anxious to see Rhoram. He still held a great deal of her heart, even though she knew, as she had always known, that he was too careless for such a burden. But there was a part of her that still loved him, even as she told herself over and over that he had a wife now. That Rhoram no longer loved his Queen was not the point. Or, at least, that had seemed to be what Achren had been getting at in the conversations they had had during the weeks of their travel to Arberth.

“So,” Achren would say, causally, as they rode through the forests and vineyards that sprawled across Prydyn, “do you think you could learn to get along with Queen Efa?”

“What do you—”

“You know what I mean. Rhoram will not put her aside. Her brother is the Lord of Ceredigion and will not take such an insult.”

“I have no thought of staying in Arberth, Achren.”

“Of course not,” Achren would reply, her generous mouth quirking with amusement. “Not in a million years.”

“Of course,” Rhiannon would say idly, trying to keep the laughter from her voice, “if something should happen to Efa—”

“You would mourn for precisely three seconds.” “Four.”

The day she and Achren had arrived in Arberth dawned