Song of the Fairy Queen (49 page)

Gawain and Gordon kept close to her, sensing the eyes on them, too.

With an effort, Kyri pulled on one of the huge oak doors to the entry and the Great Hall beyond it and drew it open.

It opened with a sound like the shriek of a damned and dying man. A sound that made her want to cry out in revulsion and disgust. She looked around almost instinctively to see if it had indeed raised the dead. To her greater horror, she realized the terrible vine was indeed growing before her eyes, forcing its tendrils between the stone and mortar, tearing it down slowly piece by piece.

Light filtered weakly through the high clerestory windows as they passed through the inner doors, past the dead guards there and into the Great Hall.

Once this room had been beautiful, filled with light and laughter, a place for celebrations, gatherings and holidays.

Kyri had guested here often, once upon a time.

There were the high seats where Oryan and Gwen had sat, watching and smiling.

Here the toppled tables from the battle had been righted, some still bearing the char of the fires set to hold off the invaders.

Between the high windows were the banners of those who owed fealty or stood as allies to Oryan, most of them faded. All save one, of a tall oak and pine.

Kyri gave honor to it, the banner of the Fair.

At the end of the hall, still oddly pristine and white, were Oryan and Gwenifer’s matching thrones. Even the gilt on them still gleamed.

Kyri turned to Gawain, who stood transfixed, looking around and frowning slightly.

In his eyes she could see memories floating just out of reach.

Then abruptly he turned and ran for the side stairs.

“Gawain,” Gordon called sharply.

Kyri closed her eyes only briefly, in grief and sorrow, and then followed quickly.

Not far. Not by any stretch far enough.

If she’d thought her horror too great before, what awaited them on the stair was very nearly too much even for her...

Gwen
.

She rounded the corner to find Gawain, frozen, staring at his mother.

And she was staring, too, with a mixture of horror, pity and grief…

Here Gwenifer stood, as perfect as the day she’d died, defending in death the stair that led to her husband and son, her swords raised, her gray eyes fierce and determined.

Kyri cried out, but thankfully Gwen’s life, at least, had flown from the body and not been trapped here in this terrible place.

A dozen swords had pierced her. Her blood stained the thin shift she’d hastily flung onto herself that long ago night.

Grief came, hard and fast, in the wake of it, and horror…

Tears sprang to Kyri’s eyes….

“Oh, Gawain,” Kyri said softly, “I never meant you to see this.”

Memories fluttered through Gawain’s mind like gossamer wings.

A pair of faces, this woman’s one of them, laughing, giving him a quick hug or kiss on the forehead. Unwrapping a present, to find a new sword in it.

His sword…a present…for his birthday?

“Who is she?” he whispered.

Grief thickened Kyri’s voice, as she reached out to touch him and release the spell.

“Your mother, Gawain. Your real mother. Gwenifer of Giliad.”

Crystalline tears rang on the stones, delicately.

She swallowed.

Her words unlocked his memories, sent them surging.

A thousand memories raced through his mind.

His voice cracked as he looked up at the woman who’d bore him. Who’d died defending him.

“I…remember,” he breathed, reaching out a tentative hand to the frozen figure but not quite touching it. He turned his head to look at the woman beside him. “Did you know her?”

He’d been young then and she looked so much different now with her hair cropped short…her clothes…her wings hidden.

“Yes, Gawain, I knew her,” Kyri breathed. “I called her friend once upon a time. She was a good one.”

Gordon stood behind them shaking his head, stunned.

“I thought,” he stammered, “I thought… maybe Liliane might be exaggerating, or addled from battle. You know how it gets. I thought, maybe…just maybe… But he is… Gawain’s the Heir, the missing heir. Oryan’s son. The one Haerold’s been seeking.”

A simple incline of Kyri’s head was all it took to confirm it.

Still puzzled, still with it not quite all put together, Gawain looked at them in shock and dawning knowledge, his gray eyes widening.

“Gwenifer. Wife of King Oryan,” Kyri confirmed, looking into his silvery eyes, so like his mother’s, “and father of the future King. You, Gawain.”

Slowly he shook his head, but it was in denial of the truth that he knew, not negation.

“That’s mad.”

His eyes went to his mother.

“You have her eyes,” Kyri said, softly.

Gawain went still.

His mother’s eyes.

That truth rang within him. Grief and sorrow for her sacrifice burned through him as he looked up into his mother’s face. He remembered loving her as children do, thoughtlessly but completely, knowing themselves well loved in return.

And Gwenifer had loved him, so much so that she’d died for him.

Grief burned deep.

“We can’t leave her there like this,” he said.

He reached out to touch his mother’s hand, just once.

The lightest brush and suddenly she was gone, puffed away like smoke.

Free.

In shock and grief he cried out and Kyri wrapped him in her arms, rocked him while he grieved for the mother he’d barely known.

“We’re guarding the future King?” Gordon said in disbelief.

“The Prince. So far as I know, Oryan is still alive. There isn’t much time, either,” Kyri said, wiping her eyes, pushing Gawain back to look him in the eye. “The Hunters won’t have given up. If you wish to see your father again, we have to go.”

It was another shock.

“He’s alive?” Gawain cried. “Oryan?”

A father, too.

Save for these sudden memories, the closest he’d come to a father had been Gordon.

Now there was the memory of a loving brush of a hand across his hair, a familiar beloved gesture…

Gordon shook his head. “Naw. Lad, you know there’ve been stories and rumors that Oryan has been dead since Morgan disappeared.”

A light frown creased Kyri’s forehead. “Well, we’ll have to find out, won’t we? But not here. I’m looking for someone else here.”

Morgan himself.

The sense of him was stronger below her feet, not above.

Just the thought made her heart ache, for she suspected where she had to go to find him…

And her heart broke….again.

The dungeons held their own horror for Kyri. First, the door was rusted and shrieked like the dead when it was opened, scraping against her nerves. Second, it was iron. Anathema to her folk. Iron cages, iron chains, iron shackles. Then there was the misery packed down here. It struck like a blow. It was also dark and dank, buried beneath the earth, and reeked of damp, mildew and excrement. It was lined with stone, carpeted with noisome straw and inhabited by rats. It was as if the earth and stone pressed on her, against her, closed her in. Enclosing her.

Iron and earth.

She fought the terrible oppression of this place.

This, though, was why she hadn’t been able to find Morgan until now. Until she was close enough to sense him despite it.

Tears threatened.

Her head bowed.

Morgan.
His name was a breath on her lips.

She scanned the cells.

These weren’t dead, they were alive, some only barely and at least one was almost mad.

Their despair battered her.

She closed her eyes, held it all at bay by sheer force of will.

“Dear Gods,” Gordon whispered. “They’ve talked of this. Haerold’s secret dungeons. We’ve found Haerold’s secret dungeons.”

Kyri walked along them, the cells, trying not to brush her shoulders against the iron, searching…nearly breathless…looking into each face.

Then she found him.

She bit back a cry.

Involuntarily, she reached for the gate. Pain seared her hands. She was oblivious.

He was gray and battered, his hair and beard grown long and so filthy it was impossible to tell the color. His eyes were closed and he was dressed in rags and thin, so thin, but she knew his spirit, knew the shape of him.

There was nothing she would have, should have, recognized. Had she been human. But she wasn’t.

Morgan.

A tear slipped free, to ring on the floor.

The sob she swallowed.

“Open them, Gordon,” Kyri whispered. “Get them out, please.”

Gordon was already reaching for the keys by the door, hurrying to each cell, unlocking them.

Some of those within fled as soon as the truth of their freedom reached them, realizing that they were indeed free. Some fell to the floor as their shackles were released, huddling there, caring only to be free of them.

It was horror.

For the sake of those others Kyri couldn’t bring herself to rush Gordon, however much she wanted it. Each second was another second too long for Morgan to have suffered, to have been caged here in this terrible place.

In her mind, though, she called
hurry, hurry, hurry
.
Please hurry
.

How many times had she dreamed of Morgan being lost, suffering…unable to reach him…to find him? And now she had. Here.

Dazed, Gawain stared. “Haerold? Haerold did this?”

“This is where he sent people to disappear,” Gordon said. “His secret dungeons, the ones what they talked about.”

She nodded as Gordon unlocked the cell, raced in after him as he released Morgan’s shackles.

Filthy, battered and bruised, dressed in rags, but it was indeed Morgan.

Her throat tightened. She caught him even as he fell, his eyes still closed. Tears burned.

Incredulous, horrified, she whispered, “Morgan?”

After all the years searching…

He was so much thinner than she remembered, as her arms wrapped around him.