Chalice 2 - Dream Stone Read online

  Chapter 5

  An hour of walking brought Mychael and Shay to a place where they could hear a waterfall up ahead. They’d escaped the old worm by the skin of their teeth with little more than their pride scorched.

  The green smell of Quicken-tree lingered in the tunnel they were in, a hint of freshness in the cool, damp air with an underlying scent of lavender that never failed to distract him. However did men survive with their wits intact outside the cloister? He did his best to keep away from her, but her damned lavender was everywhere.

  Mychael palmed his dreamstone blade from out of its sheath and squeezed hard, reheating the dimming light to signal the others. Ahead of him, Shay did the same, but before they’d gone five paces, the Quicken-tree youth resheathed his crystal dagger with a flick of his wrist, covering the glowing haft and throwing himself into shadow.

  “I smell something.”

  “So do I,” Mychael said. “Liosalfar, and mayhaps supper, if we’re in luck.” He didn’t mention lavender, as Shay was wont to speak of the girl all too often.

  “ ’Tis not Quicken-tree,” Shay said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then what?”

  Shay shrugged, looking ahead into the dark.

  “Tua?” Mychael asked. For certes they had an odd smell.

  “No, not tua.” Shay glanced back over his shoulder at him. “Did you really eat tua?”

  “Dozens.”

  Shay grimaced before sliding into the darkness on silent feet.

  Mychael smelled nothing beyond the Liosalfar and Llynya, but he sheathed his knife to cool its light before following Shay. He’d been with the Quicken-tree long enough to know their sense of smell was keener than any hound’s, capable of discerning knowledge from scent in ways beyond his ken. Something other than tua could be in the caves, yet in all the months he’d traveled beneath the earth, he’d found naught else of much substance. A few times he’d felt as though he was being watched, but he’d never seen anything, not even a trace of someone having been near. And he had looked, searched for anything or anybody that might help him find the dragons.

  And, he vowed as another breath of lavender wafted to him, he would stay away from Llynya. The elf-maid stirred another brew to life in his veins and added fuel to a fire already racing out of control.

  In camp he’d made a point of laying his bed as far from hers as possible, yet he kept awakening and searching out her sleeping form. Thus each night by the dying embers of the cookfire, he’d seen her sigh in her sleep and wondered at her dreams. He’d watched her hands unfold as she drifted beyond dreams into a deeper realm and wished he dared go near to see her thus revealed—with naught but the sweet essence of oblivion about her. And always, he traced the curves of her body with his eyes, following their mysterious paths into shadows he couldn’t delve. He understood the physical longing inherent in love, but how could he be smitten with no more than what had passed between them? Or was it only lust that made him ache?

  Not so her. She watched him like a hawk, true, but with a wariness in her eyes he well understood. He knew what he had become, and he knew his looks were far from a maid’s desire. Those few who dallied with him in Carn Merioneth did it on a dare and never long enough to suit any need. The night he’d spoken with Llynya by the well was not the first time a maid had backed away from him with a warding sign.

  Better to forget the girl and spend his days wandering the deep dark, where there were answers to be found without the distractions of lavender.

  Shay stopped at the top of a rise in the tunnel and warned him of stairs ahead. Trig had said they would encounter such. ’Twas rough-hewn work left over from an age when the deep dark had been an oft used route, before the coming of the old worm. The sound of the waterfall grew ever louder as they descended the stairs, the passage leading them through a brief maze to the entrance of the cave, a looming emptiness easily felt in the surrounding rock.

  Mychael pressed his hand against the wall to read the marks that could be found at the beginning of every cavern in the deep dark. The cave named Crai Force was not so big, a quarterlan only. The water was good and tended to flood in spring. He walked forward slowly, with Shay a half step behind, smoothing his hand along the rock, expecting at any moment to hear the scuttling of tua. When he stepped inside the body of the cave, his expectations fell away. Shay had been right. Something was wrong, and it had naught to do with tua.

  “Meshankara mes,” the boy whispered, drawing his sword. Battle was near.

  Or just past, Mychael thought. The smell of fear and valor was unmistakable, even to him. He took Shay’s hand and made a sign in his palm. How many?

  Shay answered with two quick movements of his fingers. More than five. Less than ten.

  Mychael slipped his iron dagger from its sheath. Only five could be the Liosalfar. He traced a cross on the boy’s shoulder, left to right, down to up—they would search to the north, toward the falls.

  Not fifteen paces in, they discovered Bedwyr, bound in some strange way and badly hurt. Shay dropped to his knees beside the older man and began slashing away at the bindings. Mychael pressed his hand to Bedwyr’s neck, but could feel no more than the faintest flutter of life. He moved his hand farther down and felt the wet, sticky pool on Bedwyr’s chest.

  His mouth thinned to a grim line. The battle had not gone well or Bedwyr would not have been left to die by himself in the dark, insensate and alone as the life ebbed out of him onto the cavern floor. For all their enmity, Mychael would not have wished such an end for the man. Shay cut the last thin fiber off Bedwyr’s body and began murmuring strange words under his breath.

  Mychael silenced the boy with a finger to his lips. They were not alone. He tilted his head to one side, listening beyond the weak sound of Bedwyr’s dying breaths and beneath the rushing of the waterfall. He did not have a Quicken-tree’s sense of smell, but his hearing was keen, and he heard something, a high-pitched, continuous hum seeming to come from above, beginning directly overhead and running to the north. Rising to his feet, he signed for Shay to stay with Bedwyr and set a course for the falls. Four other Quicken-tree needed to be found, mayhaps some who could be saved.

  Quick and silent, he wove a path through the dripshanks hanging from the ceiling and jutting up from the floor, skimming his fingers over their smoothly rippled surfaces to mark his way and gauge his distance from Shay.

  Bedwyr was dying, killed by an unknown foe. Four Quicken-tree were unaccounted for. He told himself a quarterlan cavern would make no easy end of Trig and the others, for a small cave could not hide much, even in darkness, but he feared the worst.

  The noise came again from above, louder and closer, and he froze in place, not daring to breathe. His fist tightened on the iron knife. Whatever was up there, he’d not encountered it before, and mayhaps it was as good at blind scouting as he and Shay, needing little more than a scent or a sound to find its prey.

  Or mayhaps ’twas a dragon.

  A thrill of excitement coursed into his veins, speeding up his pulse. The beasts could kill. He knew that as surely as he knew the same awful truth about himself. But would they hum? In his dreams, they only ever screamed, letting out sky-scorching flames with keening cries that nigh cut through his heart.

  The second noise faded to the north as had the first, and he followed, moving swiftly before he lost the way. He tracked it to a narrow arch made of two large dripshanks welded together at the top. Slipping through, he held his dagger at the ready. Spray from the waterfall misted the air on the other side, wetting the rock underfoot and dampening his face—and bringing to him a scent he’d feared he would not find... lavender.

  She was near. He could only hope the others were with her and she was not alone.

  ~ ~ ~

  Llynya crouched in the curve of a rock wall on the far side of the falls, having forded the stream to escape Trig’s fate. Her captain lay bound and gagged somewhere to the south, completely
wrapped in Sha-shakrieg threads. The same had happened to Math and Nia—but they’d taken Nia, hauled her to the roof of the cavern and stolen her away.

  They’d killed Bedwyr. Llynya knew that for sure. She’d seen the silver bolt cut through the dreamstone light in a blinding flash and slice into Bedwyr’s chest. “Thullein,” the bolt was called, named for the substance from which it was made, an ore mined by the Sha-shakrieg and forged in the far reaches of the desert with underling magic. Before the Wars they would come to the deep dark to dig for thullein, taking it back to the wasteland beyond. She’d been on her guard for nearly an hour, wracking her memory for bits and pieces of the Sha-shakrieg stories told around the campfires in Deri, and she’d come up with very little to cheer her. The spider people had been banished after the Wars of Enchantment, after their allies the Dockalfar had been overcome by the Liosalfar, which made the Sha-shakrieg unlikely to favor any Quicken-tree. ’Twas said elf shot, a precious stone mined by the tylwyth teg beneath the dragon-back of Mount Tryfan, was the surest way to kill them, but she had no elf shot arrows. Not many carried them since the Wars had been won. Rhuddlan had a quiver full, but Rhuddlan wasn’t anywhere near the stick-forsaken deep dark.

  A high-pitched hum streaked through the air above her, and she instinctively ducked, though logic told her a half-hand less of height would make her no more invisible when she smelled like a perfumery. ’Twas her saving grace, the lavender she carried, and had become a curse as well. She needed to keep herself so well infused in the caverns that she couldn’t smell her way out of bed. None had guessed this newfound weakness, or recognized her need of the herbal for what it was. Rhuddlan would have forbidden her to come if he’d known, and Trig would have refused to bring her, both with good reason. How many Sha-shakrieg were in the cavern and their location was as big a mystery to her as why they had not already tracked her down and bound her. She could smell naught besides herself.

  “Sticks,” she swore under her breath. She was near as helpless as a babe, yet she dared not falter. Sha-shakrieg or no, if she could not master the labyrinthine heart of the darkness and find the written words of the Prydion Magi, the great wormhole would forever be beyond her reach.

  When Ailfinn had first brought her to Merioneth, the trail she and the mage had taken from Yr Is-ddwfn had wound around the Weir Gate’s inner walls, a trail hidden inside the wormhole. She’d felt the power of the hole then, swirling in the inner core just beyond where they walked.

  The path she would take now was far more dangerous, for it wasn’t that slip along the side into Yr Is-ddwfn, but a leap straight down the wormhole’s throat. To survive the plunge into the flux of time took preparation. To not only survive, but to follow in Morgan’s tracks, would take the knowledge of the ancients.

  For certes Rhuddlan had not helped her cause. He’d sealed the eight tunnels leading to the wormhole with gossamer sheaths, one for each shimmering, pearlescent spoke of the weir gate, lucidly transparent but seals nonetheless. Seals she did not know how to open or break.

  And Mychael ab Arawn would scarce look at her. ’Twas the warding sign she’d given him, she was sure, that had offended him beyond measure. In four days, she had not managed to speak one word to him, let alone enlist his aid. Every glance she gave him was met with his turning away, yet she found herself glancing at him more and more often. The Liosalfar did not shadow-paint themselves for descent into the caverns, and without the woad on his face he didn’t look so fierce, but bore a deeper resemblance to his sister—silver-haired and golden-skinned and uncommonly fair of face, the way she also remembered Rhiannon, his and Ceridwen’s mother. His eyes shone blue in dreamstone light, not gray, furthering her memory of the beautiful Lady of Merioneth. Long before Rhiannon had become a mother, she’d told her tales to Quicken-tree children. Llynya remembered a soft-voiced maiden and the enchantment woven by her songs and the melodies she played upon her harp. She remembered, too, the wondrous stories of faraway places and faraway times, of magical beasts and the women who tamed them, of wild, fell creatures and the heroes who slayed them.

  ’Twas with that same sense of enchantment that she oft found herself watching Rhiannon’s son. He was no darkling beast as Aedyth had warned, yet Llynya could not help but wonder if he could be tamed to a woman’s hand. Not hers, of course. Her future—what little there was of it—lay in a far different direction, and even if it had not, she was singularly lacking in womanly skills. No, ’twould be for another to give him the gentle succor of a female’s touch, which he sorely needed. Any child could see that.

  Still she would speak with him if she could, and try to win him to her cause, but even Shay had been unable to parlay a meeting between them. Trig, being captain, was an unlikely candidate for such a mission, and Bedwyr did naught but watch him with unconcealed animosity.

  Or rather, he had watched Mychael ab Arawn. No mortal man concerned the warrior now.

  The reality of her situation descended again. Mychael had saved her once, but none was likely to find her now. Even she didn’t know where she was; she’d run blindly. She’d tried to cut Trig free, and Math. Threads had snagged her each time, not enough to hold her, but she’d lost her pack in the last tangling up, and with it her biggest stash of lavender. ’Twas best now to bide her time, to wait while the Sha-shakrieg made their retreat, which she thought the humming noises were a part of—the shooting of threads from one part of the cavern’s ceiling to another in the making or unmaking of a web.

  She started at a scraping sound to her left. ’Twas the second time she’d heard such beneath the rush of the falls. She peeked over the wall as she had before, squinting her eyes as if that would help in the darkness, but she saw naught and smelled naught, so she quickly scrunched herself back down into her damp cubbyhole, making herself as small as possible.

  ’Twas said spider people ate elf children if they caught them in the deep dark, and she wondered if they would recognize that she was no longer a child. Nia was not a child. They would not eat her, but Llynya shuddered to think what other tortures they might inflict. Poor Nia!

  Her hand trembling, she dipped into her baldric pouch for a pinch of her herbal. She’d touched one of the spider people on her flight to the falls, stumbled over him, the dead one, and she’d thought to retrieve Bedwyr’s blade. The Sha-shakrieg’s clothing had been fine and soft in a way much different from Quicken-tree cloth, but when her fingers had brushed against his skin, her blood had run cold and she’d abandoned all thoughts of getting Bedwyr’s dreamstone back. ’Twas only his arm she’d touched, and in shape ’twas much like her own, except bigger. In texture, ’twas not. He’d been covered all over with whorls, flat disks of spiraled flesh running up his arm.

  Shuddering at the memory, she found a flower in her pouch and placed it under her tongue, not daring to chew. Mayhaps ’twould be a long time before she could replenish the sack, and without the smell and taste of lavender to hold her fears at bay, she would be overcome with despair.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mychael had lost her scent, and something akin to panic set in. Trouble though she might be, he would find her. She should never have been brought so deep.

  Another sin on Rhuddlan’s head, for now Bedwyr was dead and the company overcome. He reached for his dreamstone blade, but stopped with his hand just above the hilt. Foolishness would not save her or the others. A flash of light to guide them might also get them killed. So near to the falls he could not hear any movement, but Llynya at least could not be far.

  He turned to the south, stepping into the stream. Smooth, water-worn rocks made poor footing, but he waded in up to his knees, into water like liquid ice, and soon discovered why he’d lost her scent. A wall of rock or a huge boulder—he could not tell which—curved along the streambed on the other side, the top of it just within reach of his hand. If she’d gone beyond the great outcrop, ’twould be enough to block the fragrance of the lavender she chewed.

  Taking care where he placed his feet, he follo
wed the rock downstream to where it turned back in upon itself and began rising out of the water to higher ground. ’Twas not a boulder but a wall three handspans thick, a gradually spiraling wall. He took up the faint trail left on the stone, and when he turned the last curve was suddenly upon her. The rich scent of lavender washed over him in the same instant that her blade flashed blue and slashed open the skin on his face with a bite of steel, cutting him high on the cheekbone.

  ’Twas instinct alone that enabled him to block her next blow. On the strike that followed, he captured her knife hand and lunged for the rest of her, grabbing her and pulling her hard against his chest. She struggled as if ‘twas death she fought, but he held tight and forced her to drop the dagger. The clatter of steel and crystal on stone was a raucous backdrop for her breathless cursing.

  “Not a child... s-sand eater. Let go of me. Bedwyr. Sticks! Filthy leaf-rotter... not a child—”

  “Llynya.” He spoke her name harshly, tightening his hold and pressing his thumb against the inside of her wrist in warning. There is danger in the dark, he signaled, and despite the noise and light of her attack and what it might bring down on them, he swore most of the danger was in his arms. She’d nicked him on the wrist when he’d blocked her, and warm blood ran down his face. Curse him as a fool for forgetting she was Liosalfar and not a helpless chit lost in the dark. “Llynya,” he repeated, and again pressed his thumb to her wrist.

  She jerked her head up at his second warning touch, and the eyes staring at him in the fading glow of the fallen dreamstone blade were wild with fear. Her heart beat in a frighteningly rapid pattern against his chest. Her breathing was uneven. The icy mist settling in his wound was so cold, the bone beneath the cut ached, but ’twas no colder than the Quicken-tree girl. She was shivering uncontrollably, her clothes soaked through.

  Are you hurt? He signed in her palm, but got no response before the last flicker of blue light died off her blade and plunged them once again into darkness. He was left with a vision of her stricken gaze and her fair face, of the dark mass of her hair falling down on her shoulders, twisted and braided and stuck through with leaves and twigs.