The Chalice and the Blade (The Chalice Trilogy) (44 page)

Too much leaving all the way around, to her way of thinking.

The Quicken-tree leader had sent scouts to the south—Shay with them—and was shorthanded in the search for her charges. The last remaining scout, Nia, had been sent to head them off from Wydehaw, the most logical destination, but Rhuddlan feared she would be too late. Dain moved near as quickly as the
tylwyth teg
in the woods. Llynya had begged to go and been flatly denied. She was not to leave Deri. To make matters worse, the scent of danger and evil had become stronger, permeating the trees in a manner that unsettled all of the Quicken-tree.

Moira had explained that ’twas not so much the smell of imminent danger they sensed as that of impending doom. The trees warned of forces set in motion that must be stopped to avert disaster.

A disaster of her making, Llynya thought, miserable with guilt and fear. She glanced up to find Madron staring at her—or mayhaps glaring better described the witch’s fierce gaze—and quickly looked away. Nothing good could be up and about if Madron had hied herself to Deri at dawn.

“Rhuddlan!” Trig dropped out of the trees. Rhuddlan quickly crossed the grove, and despite her trepidation, Llynya followed close behind.

“Nia spotted Dain and Ceridwen heading into Wydehaw,” Trig said. “She was at the last oak in Wroneu and could not reach them, so came quickly back to report to me. Rhuddlan, I fear the horsemen from the south are also to Wydehaw and mayhaps are already inside the castle. They were at full gallop when last seen.”

“And who are these horsemen who bring such danger into my woods?”

Trig hesitated, as if his next words were too awful to speak. “’Tis the same as we found traces of in Merioneth, the evil-smelling one, riding with Caradoc and a force from Balor.”

“Then the worst has happened.”

“Aye.”

Rhuddlan swore and turned to face the grove, raising both of his arms high above his head. “
Khardeen
!” His voice rose in the ancient Quicken-tree war cry. “
Khardeen
!
Asmen taline
!
Meshankara mes
!”

Llynya and everyone in Deri reacted, running to collect their weapons and prepare themselves for battle—except for Madron. She stood rooted to the ground, seething. Fool man, Rhuddlan, she thought. He was getting no more than he deserved for tricking her with the maid. She’d come to Deri early that morn and gotten the truth from Rhuddlan’s own mouth: Dain and Ceridwen had been mated in the Mid-Crevasse glade. He’d won, and because he’d won, they all would lose.

“Edmee,” she called to her daughter, working to keep the sharpness out of her tone. The girl rose from where she’d been sitting with Moira by the mother oak and ran lightly across the grass. Madron took her hand and drew her close. “The Liosalfar are to Wydehaw, and whatever the outcome, Rhuddlan will waste no time in heading north. I must be there, for I dare not leave him alone in this folly he has contrived.”

Damn Rhuddlan for ruining her plans and leaving her no choices. ’Twas the last time she would become a pawn in his game. This she swore.

The girl nodded her understanding; though her hand tightened on her mother’s.

“Aye, sweeting. You must stay. Aedyth and Moira must also go north, but I would not leave you alone. Naas will go with you to the cottage,” she said, naming the oldest of all the Quicken-tree and the one best suited for what Madron needed. Rhuddlan would not begrudge her Naas. Edmee made a small face, half grimace, half resignation. ’Twas true, with her white eyes and constant chewing of
kel
, a sweet grass found only in the far west, Naas was not much company, especially for a young maid, but the Quicken-tree woman had a strength of mind that could befuddle even the cleverest of mortal men, and naught other could bring harm to them. With Naas guarding the cottage, even the Sheriff of Hay-on-Wye would find himself inexplicably lost should he enter the pine forest.

“Naas will listen to the trees for you, and either tell you of my coming, or know when to bring you north,” Madron said. Deri was emptying out. The Liosalfar were already gone, in a twinkling as the stories were told, but Rhuddlan would not have allowed her to go with the Liosalfar anyway.

Edmee nodded again, and Madron clasped the girl to her breast, cursing Rhuddlan even as she kissed their daughter farewell.

~ ~ ~

Once inside the safety of the tunnel, Dain breathed easier. They could have easily been overtaken in the woods. In truth, he’d sensed someone licking at their heels. He wasn’t concerned about Rhuddlan hurting them—’twas not the Quicken-tree way—but he would have detained them, and time was in short supply. Too short of supply for him to spend any of it in opening the Druid Door. He’d locked it down to the second level to keep Ceridwen contained, for all the good it had done him. Now the quickest way into the castle proper was from the outside. There was a little used postern in the west wall that would give him access to the small stable where he kept his horse.

“You go on from here,” he told Ceri. “The Cypriot is stabled in the upper bailey. ’Tis best if I bring her around on my own and meet you in the tower. The castle folk are used to seeing me come and go at odd times, but your presence would create naught but questions.” He squeezed her shoulder. “If you cannot get inside, come back and wait for me here.”

“I had nothing with which to lock the trap when I left last evening,” she said. “Unless Erlend was knocking about, there should be no trouble.”

“Has naught to do with Erlend. Madron may have sealed the tower against us.”

Her brows lifted incredulously. “This was the price she asked?”

“Aye.”

Dismay replaced her surprise. “Then you have paid too dearly.”

“I think not,” he said simply, reaching up to caress her face. “There can be no price on the”—he hesitated the merest instant—“pleasure you give me, Ceri. Tonight, when we are safe, we will lay together again and see if you do not feel the same.”

Ceridwen knew she would. The mere touch of his hand was enough to send shivers down her body. She had not known what it would mean to lay with him, that the feel and taste of him would make such an indelible impression, that her every thought would be so easily lured back to him. She saw the sky, and the tunnel walls, and the sweet grass growing up through the tumbled rocks at the entrance, but they were as an illusion compared to the rich reality of her lover, the saturated color of his hair and his clothes, the strong form of his body, the artful curves and angles of his face. Even as she blushed at the memories of what they’d done, she wanted to touch and taste him again, to be so close that his breath was hers, to feel her breasts crushed against his chest. There was life in such physical oneness.

“Aye,” he whispered, and she smiled shyly.

“Can you read my mind, sorcerer?”

“When you think of us, aye.” His lashes lowered, and he brought his mouth down on hers.

She took the kiss and felt the warmth of it seep down to the tips of her fingers and toes. Was not as hungry as his kisses in the glade, which made it seem more of love somehow, if she dared to put the word between them.

“Go now,” he said, lifting his head. “There is gold beneath the hearthstone in the upper chamber. Bring it and extra food besides, but if the tower is sealed, come and wait for me here. I shall not be long.”

Ceridwen watched him go before turning and making her way up the tunnel. The place no longer seemed as eerie as it had the first time Dain had brought her through. They had used it a number of times in the last fortnight, sometimes bringing their supper to eat in the meadow. She prayed with every step that Madron had not locked him out of his home, but if the witch had, Ceridwen would go to her and play upon old ties and loyalties. She would not have him lose so much for what she had freely given.

At the door to the lower chamber, she paused with her hand on the latch. “Please, sweet God of mine,” she whispered, then pressed down. The latch lifted, allowing the door to swing open.

Her smile of relief was short-lived, lasting no longer than her first step into the tower. Three men stared at her from across a worktable strewn with broken glass and spilled containers. Her heart stopped in a moment of surprised terror. She turned to run, but a rough hand grabbed her and swung her into the room, then jerked her arm up behind her back. She gasped in pain. Someone sent up a cry, and more men came clattering down the stairs, bringing chaos into the alchemy chamber. In the midst of them all was a tall, broad-shouldered man with flowing blond hair, a bulwark of power and strength among the lapping waves of guards surrounding him.

“Interesting,” he said, casting a glance at the door of shelves that disguised the entrance to the tunnel. He shifted his gaze to her and looked her up and down. “You’re wet.”

He walked closer, terrifyingly beautiful with his fair hair and strangely colored eyes. Near turquoise they were, but with an iciness in their depths.

“We have not met,
cariad
,” he said silkily, extending his hand to touch her cheek. “I am Caradoc.” He smiled, and the smile was sinfully seductive. The Boar of Balor was no monster, but an angel.

Then she saw it, the glint of madness behind the ice, the cruel twist lurking in the sensual curve of his smile.

She shrank away from his touch and was brought up short by a quick jerk on her arm. She gasped again.

“Bring the lamp,” Caradoc ordered. A man obeyed, coming forward with Dain’s rock crystal lamp held high. The light spilled across her face and into her eyes, making it harder for her to see her enemy. “Helebore!” he called, and a cadaverous face appeared over his shoulder.

Sunken eyes, the hairless arch of an eyebrow, dark lines running from the corners of his mouth—here was the embodied demon, the incubus who had touched her with his heavy key. His evil was no trick of unguent, nor was he a fey creature running wild in the woods. Her mouth went dry. Fear unlike any she had known gripped her and made her tremble. He smiled at her, showing sharp, jagged, rotting teeth, and a whimper was torn from her throat. Her knees began to give way. The man behind her twisted her arm, sending an excruciating pain around her forearm and up into her shoulder. She tried to pray, but her mind could not form the words.

The incubus whispered into the Boar’s ear, the sound hissing through the air, and the Boar replied with a nod and, “Yes, yes, I see it.” His look turned more discerning, and he rubbed his thumb across her lips, an ungentle pressure. The madness in his eyes flickered. “Lavrans has made a deadly error,
cariad
, as have you. Come, Helebore. Let us take our tarnished prize home. I’m sure my friend will follow.”

Helebore barely contained his glee. The stupid slut had put the rope around her own neck. The lasciviousness of her deed with Wydehaw’s mage was written all over her face and her much kissed mouth. A small croak of a chuckle escaped him. There would be no more talk of virgins and begetting children. She was now his to do with as he pleased, and he pleased to take her blood to make his magic mix. He would distill it down to an irresistible potency and use it to call forth the strange beasts. They would lap at his fingers to get the stuff... Mayhaps he would taste it himself.

Mayhaps.

The tiniest shiver trickled down the inside of his body, the littlest convulsion of obscene pleasure. He felt himself flush, his lashes fluttered, and ’twas all he could do not to let his eyes roll up in the back of his head.

No, he told himself, not yet, not yet, if ever again. ’Twas enough that he’d opened the Druid Door. The key—he chuckled to himself, feeling a bit mad—the key to opening the locks had been carved in the keystone of the door’s arch. The Sun was the key. Nennius, the cursed whisperer from Ynys Enlli, a black-hearted raven of a priest, had known about the Sun. He’d shown Helebore the heretical placement of the planets in a book. Much of what Helebore had seen in Nennius’s books had helped him open the door:
mathematica, mechanica, and magica
.

Aye, he’d opened Nemeton’s door and proven himself as great as the Brittany bard Nennius had so admired. Pah!

He clasped his hands tightly together, his long nails digging into his skin, and stepped aside to let the others pass. Only Ifor hung behind with him, hiding in the gloom. When all the guards and Ceridwen were gone up the stairs, Helebore turned to his lackey.

“Span your bow and wait for Lavrans here,” he ordered. “When he enters the tower, shoot him, and if you would have the elixir of life, bring me his head.”

“Said naught about his head before,” the archer grumbled.

Helebore bared his teeth and hissed, and watched in satisfaction as the lout stumbled back.

“I did not have a use for it before,” he said. “Now I do. Bring it, or die a natural death.”

Ifor grunted disagreeably, but he would do it. He didn’t want the mess of a head, but neither did he want to die, naturally or otherwise, for he had long ago consigned himself to the depths of hell with his deeds. Depraved, he was, and he knew it, but life everlasting would trick the devil from his due.

The archer watched Helebore leave and allowed himself a smug smile. The leech thought him a fool, but Helebore was the fool. For immortality, he would have killed a hundred men for the
medicus
and brought him all one hundred of the heads. Heads wasn’t the part he liked—which reminded him. He’d seen a wee bowl of meat on the floor in the room above.

He eased himself around the worktable and cocked an ear toward the stairs. All was quiet. They’d gone. Helebore was twice a fool for thinking he would stay in the cold, dark dungeon when there were coals smoldering in the hearth upstairs. He could add a fagot or two to get a blaze and eat his found supper in the warmth and luxury of a fine room.

Ifor hauled himself up the stairs, ruminating on the small feast awaiting him there. He had no trouble finding the bowl, for he’d scooted it under a stool with his foot to keep it safe from other spying eyes. He threw a couple of sticks on the coals and sat down on the stool with the bowl in his hand. His crossbow was spanned and loaded, laid at the ready by his feet. The fire warmed his back as he faced the trapdoor. He’d be too quick by half for any moldy sorcerer to elude. The moment Lavrans poked his head above the last stair, old Ifor would have him.