Dog and Dragon-ARC (12 page)

And now they were left with a situation where everyone hated their guts, wanted to kill them, and they still could not farm, and had to eat ensorcelled scraps or rob their neighbors, thought Meb. And I promised to help them. I thought taking on the dragon Zuamar was crazy. This is worse. And they don’t even seem to see it will just gets worse, every time.

There was another shudder, and a hollow boom, as a trebuchet-flung rock struck the castle…and a spectacular flash of violet light through the high window, and distant boom. It didn’t rattle the walls but she felt that it should have. All the women took cover, diving down next to Meb’s bed.

“What was that?” asked Vivien.

Meb managed not to say “how should I know?” but instead, “Maybe we need to find out?”

“Could we leave the axe?” asked Vivien, beginning to recover her calm. “I think we’d hear the call to arms if they’d breached the walls.”

So the axe was placed under the bed again, and they went out. It seemed a fair number of others were doing the same thing. There were definitely no vast crowds of fighting men, or even the sounds of battle.

They went up a flight of stairs to be met by a bemused guard. “The stone,” he said. “It flew back.”

“What do you mean?” asked Vivien.

“They threw a stone at us with that big trebuchet of theirs. And it flew back from the castle with a big purple flash. Go and have a look.”

Peering over the battlements, Meb could see the enemy encampment on the headland short of the narrow causeway to the castle on its peninsula. The camp had probably been set up in good order. Right now it was in chaos, with that chaos centered around the huge, smashed wooden structure of the trebuchet and the plowed-up remains of tents beyond.

There were three other large trebuchets…but no one was near them. They were all—along with half the camp—plainly damaged by flying shards. The foe’s engineers were busy seeing just how far from the camp they could get, and the soldiery looked to be, in part, joining them and, in part, under their knights’ orders, trying to stop them.

Somewhere on the wall of Dun Tagoll, a cheer started.

Meb was walking back, deep in thought, when she came, abruptly, on Mage Aberinn. He stared narrow-eyed at her. “A word, young woman.” He looked at the other two women. “Here in the courtyard. So you do not need a chaperone.”

Meb didn’t know how to avoid this so she walked a little way with the mage. “Did you interfere in some way with my working?” he asked abruptly.

“I wouldn’t know how. I didn’t even know you were doing anything. What am I supposed to have done?” asked Meb, alarmed by the ferocity of his tone.

He seemed mollified by hers. “I had built a device to mirror back the energy of their projectiles. To return them.”

“But it worked, didn’t it?” said Meb, puzzled.

“Yes, it worked. It worked far too well, with far more power than such a working could harness. Not since King Diarmid has such a thing been reported.”

“Well, it had nothing to do with me! Ask the others. We hid behind the bed when it happened.”

He sucked his teeth. “I do not like or trust this. Or you.” And he turned on his heel and walked off without another word.

***

In the Shadow Hall, the queen stared at the viewing bowl. Where had Aberinn acquired such power? Lyonesse had been crumbling, slowly. Onslaught after onslaught it had lost more men, lost more ground. Once it had taken troops months to fight their way anywhere near Dun Tagoll. Now the borders were unguarded. West Lyonesse had become, effectively, a few fortresses along the seaboard, hated by its neighbors, with even the peasantry turning from their Lyon overlords.

Even if magically he had barely remained able to hold her out of the castle itself, it was failing.

Nothing was simple or quick. She’d learned that. And now to add to her irritation, the muryans had brought her hall too far while she had slept. So many years of working her magic on them, and they’d never been less than precise before, and right now she was not in the deep ravines of Ys, but somewhere near a noisome town in the lowlands.

She had her cauldron-men to send out. With the colors of Lyonesse flying at their head they’d go raiding and pillaging and burning for her. But was there any point in doing it here? The great Changer would not open these Ways this time. She knew its pattern. Aberinn had never guessed that.

***

Meb knew her curiosity about the Changer would have to wait. She’d done some subtle questioning and the answer to what it was and how it worked was simply that the women of Dun Tagoll did not know. Her attempts at being a good lady were being met with very mixed success, and she’d been getting the feeling that leaving the castle might still be the easiest way to help. Or at least, easier for her. They accepted that she could embroider. Her skills at the rest of the womanly arts Meb knew that they considered as far below the salt.

Maybe this Changer would bring other changes? It was inside the mage’s tower she was told. It had always been, from long before Mage Aberinn. Yes, it was a device of some sort, which he worked with. And no, when they changed, nothing was really that different within Lyonesse…except that the attacking army could not return to its own country. Nor could they get supplies from their home. Their supply chain was cut, the country was picked bare, too bare to live off, and chances were good, any other invader would attack them too. And back in their own country, the people would know: attack Lyonesse and you are lost, forever.

Once that had been enough.

Now it wasn’t.

When the change came it was silent and sudden.

Meb knew it had happened.

She could feel it. It was a little like some strange scents carried on the night air. Scents of faraway things, and of spices she knew the smell and taste of…but did not have a name for.

The association was not a pleasant one though; it somehow also smelled of cold, salt, decay, and other nasty things.

CHAPTER 9

“Yesterday, all you wanted was to go west,” said Fionn as Díleas danced around him, barking. Darting off southward, and then running back to see if Fionn was following. Doing everything but to bite the dragon’s heels to get him to follow. “You’d have been well served if I’d had have left you there for the plump lady to pamper, forced to sit on a satin cushion, and be fed sweetmeats for saving her precious boy. It wasn’t easy getting you out of there, but the last thing we need is a young knight traveling with us as well. He’s probably trying to track us, and we’re a lot harder to follow moving down the roadway than fighting our way through the forest.”

Díleas was paying no attention to his eloquence, so Fionn gave up and followed. He wasn’t prepared for the sheepdog to turn around and give him a lick on the nose.

He also was not prepared for another trilith, some three hundred yards into the forest. A low, squat one, barely five cubits from the forest floor to the balancing stone, and covered in enough moss and fern to blend into the woods.

“Now just how did you know that was there? And I’ll warrant it leads to elsewhere,” said Fionn.

It did. They came out in a long grassy dale, with the hills rising all around them. Fionn smelled the air. And then turned his back on the dog and went to have a long hard look at the trilith…which wasn’t there. He walked back up the track past where they had stepped into this place. It did not take him back to the forests of Brocéliande.
 

“A one-way gate. And another I did not know existed. Either things have changed in the wider planes while I’ve been trapped, or I knew very much less than I thought I did.” Fionn used his vision to peer into the currents of energy around the spot, ignoring the dog and his “come on” bark. There was very little sign of the vast flow of magic and other energies that such a displacement should cause. Someone or something very skilled had set up this gate.

Fionn preferred to be the one who knew more than others, to being the one who was still trying to understand. Why had the dog come this way? How did it know where the gate was?

And…did it really, somehow, as he hoped desperately, know where his Scrap of humanity was? He missed her fiercely.

Up the slope some white-grey shapes ran away. “Sheep. Yes, Díleas, I am coming. I don’t entirely like it, but I am coming. And you should be a very happy sheepdog as there seem to be a lot of sheep, rather than wolves, afancs and giants…not to mention the mother of knights here. Lead on. Here I think the appearance of being human will lead to less problems.”

It felt like Albar or Carmarthen. Which was illogical. Ys and Cantre’r Gwaelod abutted Brocéliande. But as the trilith gated way had proved, there were places and things that he had known nothing of, linking places, obviously by some sort of different mechanism. Well, Groblek could be anywhere…

They walked on. Díleas seemed determined that only one direction would do, taking them cross-country and through a muddy stream, over several dry-stone walls and into some conflict with a shepherd and his dogs on the steep hill-path they were following. “What are you doing in this pasture?” yelled the shepherd standing astride the path next to some large boulders. “Here, Strop, Cam. See them off, boys.”

Two black-and-white sheepdogs, remarkably like scruffier versions of Díleas, hurtled towards them, barking, dividing at the last minute, to flank them, and then suddenly getting the smell of dragon.

They weren’t stupid dogs. They were a lot brighter than the shepherd, Fionn decided. Brighter than Díleas, who was regarding the two suddenly halted dogs with a display of fur, a curled lip exposing his teeth and a deep burring growl. “We’re just passing through, fellow. Call off your dogs, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Not over my master’s land you’re not! Strop, Cam, gettim.”

The dogs advanced. Not in a hurry.

“Díleas. Put your head between my legs,” said Fionn quietly.

The sheepdog did, and Fionn whistled. He’d found dogs—and animals who heard higher frequencies—did not like that whistle. People didn’t even hear it.

The dogs did. So did the sheep on the hillside and quite a lot of mice and a fox. They all wanted to leave.

The shepherd did quite a lot of yelling and then some whistling. And a fair amount of swearing. “He lacks originality, Díleas,” said Fionn, addressing himself to the sheepdog. “And you’re a young dog. I don’t think you should be listening like that,” because Díleas plainly was listening, head cocked to one side, tongue a little out. Looking at his expression, Fionn was fairly sure Díleas was laughing in doggy fashion. “Now, shepherd, we’re tracking someone we’ve lost. Will you get out of our way, or shall I repay the favor by letting Díleas bite you? Or I could toss you down this hill? I’ve no real desire to fight, but I’m in a hurry.”
 

One of the sheepdogs had returned to behind its master, nearly crawling on its belly, tail between its legs. The other was staying a lot further off. “What have you done to my dogs?” said the shepherd, backing up himself. “I can’t let you walk over here. My lord said I was to keep people off. They’re stealing his game, he said.”

“Don’t be dafter than you have to be,” said Fionn, his sympathy, as usual, with whoever was stealing the odd pheasant. “Firstly, you can see I’m not stalking or hunting anything, and secondly, I’m not going to tell him I met you if I happen to run across him. And who else will tell him? I’m just passing through.”

“But…but there is nowt up there. Just devil’s leap.”

“Then maybe I’m the devil, going there.”

The shepherd looked at him, wide-eyed, and then jumped down the rocks on the edge of the path and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him, followed by his dogs.

“Come on, Díleas. Barking at him is just rude,” said Fionn. “I think we’ve started a new legend, which is enough chaos for one day. And it should make poaching up here a bit easier too. I do like doing public service, especially when it involves a mischief. And something tells me you’re taking me to this ‘devil’s leap.’”

Indeed he was.

It was well-named, if you were human. A great plate of cap-rock had been eroded into a narrow tongue, while the softer underlying rock had been eaten away. It hung above the wrinkled valleys of the lowlands a thousand feet below.

To a dragon, of course, it looked like it could be prime real estate, especially if there was a cave somewhere close. The difference was that dragons had wings, and dogs and humans were a little short of those.

And that fool dog was simply walking towards the drop. It did seem to be giving him pause…well, he was slowing down. “Wait. Díleas, this is a better task for a dragon than a human. And better too for a dog to have a dragon for company. I really need to rig you some kind of harness. Aha! I have it. The coil of traveler rope. Let’s tie it to you, because my talons might have a bad effect on a fast falling dog.”

So they stopped, high above the world, where along a distant roadway a cart toiled. Fionn could detect a minor perturbation in the energy flow here, but he would never have found it without getting so close. Whoever had built these Ways between worlds had been adept at hiding them from planomancers, also from others here, if reaching them involved walking over a cliff.

The dog got a long harness, which, Fionn could tell by his pawing at it and sniffing, was less popular than the red boots had been. “I haven’t got you on a lead. You’ve got me on one,” said Fionn taking the end in a dragon talon, and wrapping it around his leg. “So lead.”

And Díleas did. One cautious foot at a time…stepping out into the air. And then, he leapt into space. Fionn followed. Either the dog knew more or could sense more than a planomancer, or it was just a really crazy dog.

They did fall.

But not far enough for Fionn to unfurl his great wings. Actually he had to do a frantic roll in the air so as not to land on the dog. And the turf they landed on was springy and covered in thick moss. There were trees—gnarled, huge, ancient trees—overhanging the dell. The air was sleepy, warm, and full of the gentle background sounds of bees.

Fionn was attuned to the use of energies and magics. He knew this for what it was. He turned to Díleas, who had flopped down, panting. “Come, dog. Don’t even think of lying down. Think of rats, or rabbits, or better still, busy beavers. Or you’ll end up like that.” He pointed to a green-white curved dome, lying in the shade. It might have been a rock, except for the eye sockets. Díleas got up and walked with leaden feet, still with the rope leash on, too tired to even protest that indignity. There were other bones here in the forest. A rotten femur nearly tripped him. Fionn could feel the lethargy affecting him too. Dragons were not as much affected by the magic of other species, not even the magic of the tree-people. How many desperate humans had walked to the devil’s leap to jump…and found themselves here? Spared to become plant food. They walked towards another long-dead human, with shreds of faded clothing and a rusted sword and hauberk. Fionn picked up the sword in his dragon talons. The dog was swaying on its feet. “That’s enough,” he said. “Stop this now or there will be trouble.”