Dog And Dragon Part 26

"I think this may call for your magic, Sc.r.a.p. And quite quickly. No, Dileas. You cannot see them off, or herd them."

"They're carrying white flags, Finn. And...they seem to be settling. Putting down whatever it is they're carrying."

Fionn could work out what it was, now. And that didn't make him much happier than the dragons had. Actually the dragons might be less trouble, but he did understand why they behaved so undragonishly now.

Shadow Hall began to trundle slowly toward them. It was as hard as ever to see. But the white flag was easy enough to spot. It stopped a hundred yards away and a party of men came out escorting someone.

"Queen Gwenhwyfach," said Fionn. "And that is Shadow Hall. And the ones escorting her I would guess are some of her cauldron-men. She makes them, as I told you, from dead tissue."

"Do you think she's come to surrender? They have a white flag."

"Let me go and find out," said Fionn.

"Not without me. And by the looks of the way Dileas is bristling, not without him, either. I don't...really think I want to meet her, Finn."

"I think you'll have to, nonetheless."

They walked forward to meet the queen of Shadow Hall. She was, Fionn noted, much better at playing the traditional part of being n.o.bility than his Sc.r.a.p could ever be. Gwenhwyfach was being carried on a palanquin of golden silk, dressed in velvet and ermine, with a crown. Meb was wearing an old skirt, a s.h.i.+rt that had blood on it, and her only "dressing" was an alvar comb in her hair. There was quite a lot of glamor on that ancient alvar piece, and it did make her hair exceptionally bright and flowing. Like that spatha-axe she carried...she didn't seem to realize that she called the most powerful magical artifacts to herself. The axe had been buried a long time. As Fionn recalled, it was supposed to be sharp enough to cleave stone, and she'd magically sharpened it further.

Still, his Sc.r.a.p looked very ordinary compared to Gwenhwyfach's pomp. That was good in Fionn's opinion. He wasn't sure how it sat with humans. "She did plan to kill us both," he said quietly. "This may be a relatively unwise thing to do."

"Good thing that it's us doing it then," said Meb, squeezing his good hand.

The bearers set the palanquin down and a flunky gave her his arm to stand up. The queen did not appear to need it.

"It smells a bit," said Meb quietly as the queen approached.

"My darling daughter! Anghared, how I have longed to hold you! Come to your mother's arms!"

"I hear you were trying to kill me," said Meb, not moving. "I also hear you tried to kill Finn. And that you've been sending your half-dead creatures to stir up war. That stops."

Fionn wondered if his Sc.r.a.p even knew that she was projecting her voice so that the entire camp, and probably the town and fortress could hear it.

It must have got to the queen too, because she took one more step, and stood, arms outstretched. Or perhaps it was Dileas, growling with deep menace. "I never tried to kill you, child. As the dragon told me, it was the flame creatures and their masters and their treachery. I have been working on some traps for them. And Lyonesse...I merely repaid them for their treason."

"There was no treason. You were wrong, you blamed the wrong people," said Meb flatly.

The queen drew herself up. "There was much treason, even if I was wrong about who had stolen you and where you were taken to. But now you will be queen after me. Together we'll take Dun Tagoll and put that traitor Aberinn and his hireling regent onto sharpened pikes. We will find you a suitable n.o.ble from the House of Lyon to be your king. And your sons will rule. It is what I thought I would do, but I will celebrate your ascension to the throne..."

"No thank you," said Meb. Fionn had heard that tone from her before. And he and Dileas knew it meant trouble. "I don't want you, or need you, or your dreams. I defend Lyonesse. I do not attack it, nor will I let anyone else do so. Not you, not anyone." And with that Meb turned and began walking back to the camp.

For a moment Fionn thought the old queen would have apoplexy on the spot. She did take one angry step forward...and sank up to the knees into the earth.

"Hee hee hee," chortled the spriggan who had been doing a pa.s.sable imitation of a rock. "She's the Land, old Lyon. It won't let you harm her, even if you could."

"That...that is not possible," said Queen Gwenhwyfach. "The King is the Land, and the Land is the King. It only serves the anointed king!"

Fionn could see deep energy patterns. "I'd go," he said quietly to the queen, as his Sc.r.a.p turned her back and walked away. "Go and do your best to make reparations. Stop the invasions, make peace. Don't do anything else. In time she may come around, but not if you make things worse."

And then he turned and followed his human.

She had a dog and dragon for comfort, and needed them.

Fionn had been glad to see Shadow Hall-and the dragons-leave. His Sc.r.a.p now of course wanted to know all about it, about the Cauldron of Gwalar, about how it moved. She could have had a guided tour, Fionn was sure. But perhaps better not.

"The cauldron appears to be a magical artifact that takes the patterns of the living creatures from dead matter and makes more, and reanimates them. She had her muryan slaves collecting corpses, and then she puts them back together and to work for her. It seems they have no free will and fairly limited intelligence."

"Slaves and prisoners should be set free," said Meb firmly.

"In the case of the muryan," said Fionn, "it raises an interesting question. The workers and soldiers are slaves to the queen, to the death, by their very nature. They are imprinted on her and cannot do anything but what she wants them to do. They adore her, and in that you might say it is a willing bondage that they would never swap. The queen, on the other hand, is their prisoner, watched and guarded every second. The soldiers a.s.sess danger to her; they will not permit her to expose herself to anything they consider even faintly risky. She will never touch the ground nor eat food that has not been tasted and waited upon for an adverse response on the health of the taster. She will never be alone. They would do anything for her but leave her to her own devices. And she would never choose otherwise. To be served, to be their prisoner, is as much part of her as being her slave is to them."

"Yes, but she is the prisoner of this woman. And that isn't right. I'm not sure about the rest, but that isn't right."

"We'll liberate the muryan queen from her somehow," said Fionn, not adding that the muryan queen would then be indebted to Meb.

Earl Alois and his troops had been hiding in ambush for the knights of Abalach when the dragons came. He thought it was the end, after their success against the troops of Cantre'r Gwaelod, who had been in disarray and piskie-led already. It had seemed that the G.o.ds above and below might grant them victory. And now defeat, and disaster, and death.

It was...for many of the knights of Abalach.

Afterwards, one of his men stood up from where they'd cowered in the forest brake. "Do we chase after them, my liege?"

"No." He took a deep breath. "No. We go north to meet the Defender."

There was a cheer from his men.

"How far north?" asked one of the officers. The man on whom provisioning rested, Alois realized.

"At least as far as Dun Tagoll. I think," said Alois.

For the second time in her life Gwenhwyfach found herself in the pit of despair. It was worse than being in an adamantine cage with a dragon.

She had begun to dream great things of her daughter. And also realized that she was eclipsed in power by her. That was enough to make her both proud and afraid.

At first she had been inclined to blame the dragon.

But, stripped of her illusions, she realized that the dragon had firstly spared her life. Even though he could not kill, to put the lid back on the trap was not beyond him, and he had left her water, and told her she'd eventually get out, and secondly he had told her the truth. There were almost shreds of sympathy there. His kind were long-lived. And what did she have to fight for anymore? She'd hoped her daughter's son might eventually rule. She'd thought, once, that she might be the power behind the throne, but, whatever, her bloodline would rule Lyonesse. She'd never dreamed of ruling it herself. That was for men.

And now her daughter did, although she seemed unaware of it.

So Queen Gwenhwyfach took the dragon's advice and sent out her dragons, and word to any of her minions that had not already been told: stop the invaders, at any cost.

The Shadow Hall settled on a high hill in her native South while she was doing these things.

When she came to notice it, she realized that the muryan slaves were gone, and Shadow Hall would not be moving.

The Land did not like slaves, and its magic was far more powerful than hers.

So she sat in her high room and looked via the basin at Dun Tagoll.

Anghared would turn her attention there, eventually.

And that, at least, would be sweet.

Maybe she could get used to being old, and contemplating grandchildren and not plotting revenge. Then she thought of the creatures of smokeless flame and thought: maybe not.

CHAPTER 27.

Dun Tagoll basked in the spring. The prince and his troop rode out on local patrols, but there had been none of the deluge of foes they'd expected.

No messengers came from the other Duns. Not from the north, the center, the prince's own lands in the east, and of course not from the south.

Eventually, Prince Medraut sent out a strong party to Dun Telas. To get a message back that the men of Telas had marched south with the Defender. They were full of stories about how the Lady Anghared had dealt with the men of Ys, the Vanar, and soldiers from Erith. Even driven off the dragons of Shadow Hall.

The prince sent a message for the royal mage.

Aberinn appeared in a good mood. "I have discovered what the problem in my spells is. It appears that there is now considerably more magic in Lyonesse, which has meant all our workings were miscalibrated. That's why the Changer overshot. That's why we had sufficient power so much sooner. Anyway, I have run a number of calibration spells. I can adjust the Changer so that it operates as normal."

"Why bother?" asked Prince Medraut sourly.

"Have your wits gone begging, Medraut? To allow us access to fresh magical energy. To allow us to escape our enemies." said the elderly mage.

Medraut shrugged, insolently. "You've just said there is considerably more magical energy in Lyonesse. And that young woman, it appears, is not dead. She is this Defender that you prophesied."

"Don't be stupider than you have to be, Prince Medraut."

"I've just had my messengers return from Dun Telas. She's defeated Ys, Vanar, Erith and your Shadow Hall. And she will want my head. Yours, too, I would think."

The mage rolled his eyes and said in a voice of severely tried patience. "She is not this legendary Defender, whoever she is. If she has defeated Shadow Hall, my crows can fly. I will test that, but I doubt it. Shadow Hall merely waits. The enchantress has that kind of patience, that long view. The Vanar were destroyed by a storm. We saw wreckage. As for the rest, Ys under Dahut is dissolute..."

"How do you know that she's not this Defender? It was prophesied..."

Aberinn drew himself up. Shook his head. "Because I made it up, Medraut. I made it up so it would be easy enough for me to arrange if my son returns. I did it so it would be easy to get rid of the likes of you."

And he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Medraut without a word to say. He was still standing staring at the door when Lady Cardun came bustling in. "Those crows fly again from Aberinn's tower. What's this story we're getting via the men-at-arms, Prince?"

"How is your scrubbing, Cardun?" he asked. "Kitchen floors, I would say, would be the best you can hope for."

She looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "What are you talking about, Prince Medraut?"

"The news from Dun Telas is that that girl Anghared has been hailed as the Defender. She's defeated our worst foes, even Shadow Hall. Aberinn says it is impossible, but that he'd test it with his gilded crows. You say they fly out. So, therefore, that at least is true."

The chatelaine's face went white under the face paint. "It can't be."

"That's what Aberinn said. He said the entire prophecy was a fraud set up so that he could claim the throne for his son," said Prince Medraut.

"But...he doesn't even like women. He has no son...Let me go and speak to Vivien. There was gossip. But it can't be true."

"You'll be scrubbing and I'll be at the whipping posts before I lose my head," said Prince Medraut, glumly. But his aunt had not stayed. She'd gone in search of Vivien.

Lady Vivien was out on the battlements, looking at the distant golden flashes. "It seems you were wrong, and I should have been braver. I was afraid of Aberinn and afraid for my boys."

"Hmph. What do you mean, Vivien?" demand Lady Cardun, unable to leave go of her hectoring tone, even now.

Vivien shrugged. "Just what I say. She was the Defender. And I was too weak to go with her when she asked me for help, to leave. I told her to fit in here. She went, with just a maid to support her. Now, Lyonesse itself is changing, and we are not part of it."

"Not while Prince Medraut holds Dun Tagoll, it is not. Is it true that Aberinn has a son?"

"Not that I know of. He uses women sometimes, so he could have, I suppose." The younger woman turned. "I see that some of the golden crows are coming back already. Why don't you ask him yourself?"

And she walked away.

Vivien had taken herself to the wizard's tower, a little later, unable to not know. It was possible to do this in a way which did not make it easy to overlook, as she knew all too well.

The inner door was open. It was never open. She tiptoed in. She could hear them now-Aberinn, Medraut, Cardun. Voices raised. Aberinn: "The neyfs are even plowing again."

"Where is she?" asked Medraut.

"South of Dun Telas, dealing with a handful of knights under the banners of Broceliande. The crows show that they've made a peace with them and the knights are being taken back to the Way, under escort."

"Is it definitely this Anghared?" asked Cardun.

The sarcasm in Aberinn's voice was thick. "It was a woman who looks as like her as two peas in a pod, mounted on a warhorse, with that silver axe Vivien told me of. She is accompanied by that maid of hers or someone who looks exactly like her, but other than that, no, I am not certain."

"Can we...you, kill her?" Medraut asked. "With your art, perhaps."

"You tried and failed. I used my art to shoot at her with the model-bow. And somehow...that failed. I made two other attempts. She is defended in some way. She is now accompanied by what I take to be her master. He must be a mage of considerable power."

"So what are we going to do?" asked Cardun.

"We hold Dun Tagoll. If she could act against it, she would have while she was here," said Medraut.