Dreamwalker (3 page)

*

Errol knew as he rounded the corner that it was going to be a bad afternoon. The posse were waiting for him.

‘Hey, Witch Boy! Where d’ye think ye’re going?’ He didn’t know who spoke the words, didn’t really care. It could have been any of them. It was hard to distinguish one village boy from another at times, even though he had known them all from his first memories. They all had the same round, florid faces, the same mops of straw-blonde hair cropped in the same regulation pudding-bowl style. Only the cloth and cut of their tunics and trousers gave any hint to who might be who’s son, and even then everyone in Pwllpeiran was related. It was that kind of place.

‘I aksed yer a question, Witch Boy.’ Closer up, Errol could see who was being clever this time. Alderman Clusster’s son, Trell. He was dressed in expensive fabrics: strong corded trousers that reached halfway down his shins and looked like he had long-since grown out of them; a thick twill shirt, two sizes too big; and a soft leather jacket of doe-hide brown. To Errol, dressed in his much-mended sack-cloth trousers and shirt, it was an unnecessary display of wealth, though that hadn’t stopped Trell from clambering up trees, through hedges and across streams with the rest of his less-well dressed gang. It looked like they had taken the short cut straight from school to head him off on his way home. Errol’s heart sank. If that was the case then he might as well get the torment over sooner rather than later.

‘I’m going home, Trell,’ he said. ‘You know, Hennas’ cottage up the road a-ways, where your mam had to bring your sister last autumn. To get rid of that little problem she had.’

Trell looked furious. His face turned redder still and his hands clenched into fists. Now comes the bad part, Errol thought. At least the beatings were usually short. As the gang approached, he thought about turning and fleeing, but bitter experience had shown him that running only prolonged the torment, and exercise seemed to increase the gang’s violent tendencies. He stood his ground as they approached and was rewarded with a flicker of uncertainty in Trell’s eyes. Like most bullies, the boy was a coward at heart.

‘You wanted something Trell?’ Errol said, trying to keep his voice calm though it felt like his whole body was shaking. ‘Only, I can ask my mam to whip up another potion if you need.’

A shock ran through his whole body as the punch came from nowhere, collided with the side of his face. He had been expecting a kick, or at least a blow to the stomach first, but by the time Errol had thought any of this, his knees had already given up and he was on the hard-packed dry dust of the road. The gang stood around him laughing as Trell pulled back and landed a heavy kick in his stomach. Through his pain, all Errol could see was his leather satchel lying on the ground a few feet away, its contents spilled out in the dirt, kicked this way and that by the circling boys. His prize, the book he had been reading all summer, lay broken-spined, trampled as if it were worthless. A strangely lucid part of him laughed at the realisation that to most of his illiterate tormentors it might have been no more than bathroom stationery. Another carelessly placed foot ripped a skein of pages in two, spilling them about the pathway, and Errol’s laughter suddenly turned to rage.

Without thinking, without even knowing how he did it, he grabbed the nearest foot on an inward trajectory and pulled it hard towards him, rolling as he went. The laughter turned to alarm as someone yelped and then a pile of bodies crashed to the ground all around him. Seeing Trell’s face in the melee, Errol lashed out with his foot, feeling a cruel satisfaction as his soft leather heel met bony nose with a sickening crunch.

‘Aaarghhh. Doo boke by dose!’ Trell screamed, clutching his face as thick red blood spurted from between his fingers. He scrabbled away from the fight, shuffling on his bottom like a baby and Errol couldn’t help himself from laughing. The rest of the gang, picking themselves up off the ground, looked over at Trell’s pathetic figure and joined in. Someone grabbed Errol’s arm and for a moment he thought he was going to be hit again. Instead he felt himself being pulled to his feet, his dusty shirt patted down with rough but not unkindly hands. Someone slapped him hard on the back, almost knocking him to the ground again. Turning, he saw Clun, the merchant’s son, a huge grin on his face.

‘Nice one, squirt,’ the boy said, genuine mirth on his face. ‘Perhaps ye’re not such a weed after all.’

Errol was confused. He couldn’t work out what had happened. He stood, staring in a daze at the sobbing figure of Trell, still sitting on his backside in the dirt, still clasping his bleeding face, tears mixing with the blood and dust on his cheeks. The other boys were ignoring him completely now, chattering amongst themselves about what they were going to do next. School was over for the week, harvest was all but finished and two days of autumn sunshine beckoned. There was exploring to be done, adventures to be had and games to be played.

Errol realised that he was being asked to join in. Someone pushed his satchel back into his hands, the torn pages of the book roughly shoved into the top.

‘Wotcher say Witch Boy? Ye wanna play battle in the hayfield?’ Clun asked.

‘It’s Errol,’ Errol said, bemused at his turn of fortune. ‘My name’s Errol.’

‘Whatever. Ye’re the Witches’ boy. That makes ye Witch Boy. Ye coming?’

Errol considered his options. He had seen the games of battle played out in the fields in summers past. They were rough and ready, usually ending in someone being hurt badly enough for his mother to be called upon to heal them. Everyone involved got into serious trouble for the damage they caused. He longed to join in, indulge in some carefree rambunctiousness, but there were endless chores to be done and his mother was no longer young, if indeed she ever had been. But if he passed up this opportunity would it ever come again?

He looked down at his satchel and the mess that was his book. Then he looked across to where Trell was still sitting. The Alderman’s son had turned very pale and blood was still leaking from his nose. The green of his shirt was slicked all down the front with black, his expensive trousers speckled and the soft suede of the jacket ruined.

‘I can’t,’ Errol said, turning reluctantly back to Clun. ‘I’d better get Trell to my mam ‘fore he bleeds to death, and once I get home there’ll be no coming back.’

‘Suit yersel’’, Clun said with a small shrug. Then he slapped one of the other boys hard on the back of the head and ran off whooping, pursued by the rest of the pack.

Errol shouldered his pack and stooped to help Trell up. Something strange had just happened. It was as though their roles had reversed. How long had the Alderman’s son been bullying him? Years too long. And all it had taken was a kick to the face to turn it all around.

‘Leabe us be,’ Trell snarled, causing Errol to step back. Some of the old fear was still there, but it was just a reaction.

‘At least tilt your head back a bit and put some pressure on the bridge,’ Errol said. ‘Or you might bleed to death. Come to the cottage and my mam’ll fix it up in no time.’

‘Dot goink eddywhere near your sdinkink hovel,’ Trell shouted, blood spittling out of the sides of his mouth as he scrabbled to his feet. ‘Ye’ll bay for dis Errol Rabsboddob.’ And with that he ran off back towards the village.

Errol noted with some satisfaction that he held his head back, one hand reaching up to the bridge of his nose as he went.

~~~~

Chapter Two

The knowledge and wisdom of a lifetime is stored in a dragon’s jewels. Every experience, thought, action; every loss and every regret is tied up in those elegant and mesmerising gems. And yet from the moment a dragon dies, those same memories begin to leach away, returning to the earth from which all power comes. To save those memories for eternity, to retain a remembrance of a greatness now passed, the jewels must be reckoned. And only the living flame can seal up a jewel against the ravages of time.

Healer Trefnog’s The Apothecarium

The old dragon looked somehow larger in death than in life, as if he had shrunk himself through sheer force of will. Now, freed from the shackles of existence he lay impossibly huge upon the rickety old wooden bed in his tiny cottage.

Benfro peered around his mother to stare at the dead form of Ystrad Fflur. Of all the dragons living in the village, he had been perhaps the kindest, certainly the most indulgent. Benfro remembered the room from past visits too numerous to count. He would sit by the fire listening to stories of the world outside the forest, mythical places whose very names conjured up exotic images: The Sea of Tegid; Fo Afron and the Twin Spires of Idris. Many an hour he had spent, spellbound by the endless tales of legend. Benfro suspected that Ystrad Fflur was lonely and liked the company but he had been generous too, plying him with sweetmeats and other delicacies as a bribery to keep him coming back.

And now he was dead. His scales were dull and pallid, almost pulling away from his skin. His wings were crumpled sheets, callused and worn at the edges, knobbly with arthritis at the stumps. His face, scarred in some long-dead quarrel whose details Benfro had never managed to uncover, looked peaceful, no longer wracked with the pain that had accompanied his every movement.

Morgwm stepped further into the room and Benfro followed her, clutching the amphora to his chest. It was heavy, but the responsibility for carrying it felt heavier still. He noticed that the fire in the grate had gone out, a chill spreading through the small room quite unlike anything he had ever experienced before. So that’s what death means, Benfro thought. It’s not about bodies lying motionless, or dragons giving up the will to live, it’s about the fire going out and there being no more stories.

‘Benfro! What are you doing in here. You shouldn’t have to see this…oh.’ Benfro turned to see another dragon enter the room behind them. She carried herself with a stiff formality that he knew belied her true, mischievous nature. Her face was kind and had once been beautiful. Her scales still gleamed with myriad colours but age had begun to rob Meirionydd of some of her youthful vigour. She stepped up to him and scratched him between his ears in her friendly way, but he could see the anguish on her face.

‘I’m sorry Morgwm, I didn’t realise you were here already,’ she said.

‘It’s alright Meirionydd,’ Morgwm said. ‘Benfro’s going to help me with the Fflam Gwir. It’s something he has to learn.’

‘True,’ Meirionydd said, a note of sadness in her voice. ‘I never thought he’d be so young when it came around though.’

‘Ystrad Fflur has been slipping away for centuries,’ Morgwm said. ‘Even my most potent herbs couldn’t keep the rot out of his bones.’ She turned her attention to Benfro. ‘Meirionydd and I have to prepare the body,’ she said. ‘Please take the amphora to the great hall. We’ll meet you there.’

Benfro was about to protest, but he saw the look on his mother’s face and decided against it. And besides, the cold room was beginning to alarm him. Something about the lifeless corpse sent shivers up and down his long spine. Turning, he made to go, but Meirionydd blocked his path.

‘Don’t be so glum, Benfro,’ she said, smiling. ‘This is a sad time, it’s true. But Ystrad Fflur would not have wanted us to be miserable. Remember something about him that makes you happy and cling to that memory. You’ll need it later on.’

Benfro nodded and ducked out of the cottage. He made his way carefully towards the large building that stood in the centre of the village and where all the dragons congregated for their evening meals. As he walked he remembered Ystrad Fflur sitting in near darkness by the fireplace, spinning a splendid yarn about his travels in the ice fields of the frozen south, sharing big chunks of crystallized ginger root which he pulled from a seemingly bottomless jar on the table beside him. The smile soon came back to his face.

‘What’re you so pleased with yourself about, squirt?’ The voice cut through Benfro’s reverie like a Yonaw-month wind. He turned to see his least favourite villager scowling at him.

‘Good morning, Mistress Frecknock,’ he said, trying to bow politely without dropping the amphora, or indeed spilling any of its precious contents.

‘A dragon is dead,’ she snapped. ‘What’s so good about that? And what’s that you’re carrying?’

Nervously Benfro held up the amphora for inspection, although he wasn’t about to hand it over. ‘It’s Delyn oil,’ he said. ‘For the reckoning.’

Frecknock made a dismissive noise as if she thought Benfro a poor liar. She had polished her scales, he noticed, tinting them with something so that they gleamed black rather than their normal iridescent bog-grey. She had done something to her wings too, forced them into what looked like a very uncomfortable position with some kind of wire frame. It contrived to make them look like they were much larger than their actual size and neatly folded away. Benfro knew that Frecknock’s wings were smaller even than his, and he was only ten. The idea that she might pretend that they could lift her off the ground filled him with ill-suppressed mirth.

‘What are you smirking about, horrible kitling,’ she yelled. ‘Give me that jar before you break it and ruin the day for everyone.’

Years of experience of Frecknock’s ways meant Benfro was able to dart from her grasping hands as she lunged at him. For a terrible moment he thought he was going to drop the amphora, spill its priceless contents over the grass, but he managed to keep hold of it as he ran towards the great hall.