Dog And Dragon Part 20

"No. They don't belong here. A few are relatively harmless. But many would upset your dragon's balance."

"He...he still works on that?"

Lady Skay seemed amused. "Sometimes."

"Is he...well?"

"He's a dragon. They don't usually get sick. But he, and that black and white dog, seemed well last time they went paddling in my water."

"Thank you. Thank you so much," said Meb, smiling tremulously.

"It seems a fair repayment. You carried similar information for me. And I will deal with the Vanar fleet. Have no fear of them. Or any further troubles with mermen. Call on me again...I must go."

Meb could swear she heard a crash somewhere. It could have been a wave breaking.

Meb turned away from the sea, to the Wudewasa and the spriggan waiting on the sh.o.r.e behind her.

"They're not usually interested in talking to people," said the spriggan. "I don't know why, but they're a nasty bunch, this lot of sea-people. We'll just have to fight the Vanar on land."

"Um. Didn't you see her?" asked Meb.

"Was there a mermaid?" asked the spriggan.

If the Spirit of the Sea did not want them to see her...well, who was Meb to tell anyone about it. "We can stop worrying about the Vanar," said Meb. "Now we just need to deal with any other invaders."

"Oh. All it needed was for you to splash your hand in the water," said the Wudewasa warrior. "We could have done that."

"But you didn't," said Meb, with a sweet smile. "So it's a good thing that I did. And you never know, it might not have worked for you. Actually, I am certain it wouldn't. Now, I think we need to work out where the next threat is, and deal with that. Those soothsayers are supposed to predict these things, aren't they? Because if I have to go and ask the muryan and others for help in person, I will have to get there in time to do it. And in between I'd like to try and fit in some sleeping and some eating, which I have found make me think better, and be better tempered, too. I daresay Wudewasa and spriggans don't work like that, but we spoiled fis.h.i.+ng village royalty do."

She'd made them laugh, which Finn had said was half the battle won. She had a feeling it might be the easy half.

CHAPTER 21.

Fionn had flown wild rides through storm and chaos on far too many worlds. He'd been at sea and s.h.i.+pwrecked in more tempests than most people have days to their lives. Never had he been on such an angry sea. It was not just an angry sea, with waterspouts and waves taller than the Busse itself...but it was also a beautiful day, with the sun s.h.i.+ning and not much more than a breath of wind.

They were rowing, as fast as possible, toward the fiords of Vanar. The sea was pus.h.i.+ng them, them and all the other surviving vessels, back toward the land. Fionn was seriously weighing the possibilities of taking to the air, along with Dileas, and never mind those who saw the sailor turn into a dragon. Their chances of living to tell the story were scant. But it did seem that so far, anyway, this particular vessel had been spared the worst. Even the waterspouts had sheared away and gone to sink other less fortunate s.h.i.+ps. The sea did not stop its wildness inside the fiord. It seemed to be trying to spit out, or wreck, as many Vanar s.h.i.+ps as possible. The steersman of this vessel, very sensibly, beached it on the first bit of land that wasn't cliff. It made a few holes in the s.h.i.+p but the fury of the waves had driven her bow well up onto the steep rocky, gra.s.sy slope. They all scrambled off her anyway, all wanting to be away from the angry water.

"It's as if the G.o.ddess Ran has taken against us. And we give her thralls and branntwein every year. Ai, she's a capricious one," said the steersman, looking glumly at the s.h.i.+p. "Come on, lads. Let's see if we can haul her up a bit. Or the sea'll have her tail off, and we'll not be getting more timber to build another like her. Not from Lyonesse anyway."

Fionn agreed with the last part, even if he called to Dileas and then sneaked off among the boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above, rather than help with the hauling.

He was also sure that it hadn't been all Ran's-as she was called locally-idea. This was his Sc.r.a.p. It had her mark of total overkill about it, he thought ruefully. She'd got on with Lady Skay of the sea, and with Groblek of the mountains.

He started walking uphill. Below, in the fiord, the water, having disgorged or sunk the fleet of Vanar, was settling back to its normal mirror-calm.

"We'll do it by flying to the island with the Tolmen Way, boy. Let's get a little distance from the s.h.i.+pwrecks first. I'm tired after that row, and wouldn't mind a nice easy launch. We'll need to get a fair bit of alt.i.tude, because s.h.i.+pwreck or no, some of these Vanar will shoot arrows at us. And your basket won't stop those."

Dileas seemed quite happy to be back on dry land, and not frantic to set off for his mistress just yet. They were both wet through and it was fairly cold this late in the afternoon. Fionn was just wondering if he ought to try drying the contents of Dileas's basket with a fire, or just take a chance on getting to the Skerry island that was their target, wet and cold, when he spotted the building.

He had excellent recall. He'd seen this angular building with its two chimneys before.

Only that had been in Annvn, not on a steep slope above a fiord in Vanaheim. And...now that he looked carefully, it was attempting to meld with the shadows of the cliffs, to look like a trick of the light. A powerful piece of spellwork, that. And it was clearly and definitely moving.

And now that he tasted the air, it smelled faintly of dead things.

It was time, Fionn decided, to go and ask some questions.

He began running up the slope. The shadowy, hard-to-see house moved faster, almost as if it knew it were being chased.

"I think we'll have to try and work it as if between two sheepdogs," he said to Dileas, who plainly did not think a building should be able to move, and probably deserved to be bitten for it. They split and Dileas raced ahead, and Fionn, in dragon form, angled away to flank it. It was a bit steep for houses here, let alone ones that were trying to run away. They cornered it in a corrie and jumped up onto the portico.

"It occurs to me that owners of moving houses may have some nasty surprises waiting inside," said Fionn to Dileas. "So behind me, dog. Dragons are a lot harder to hurt, or kill, than dogs, and I have not got this close to our human to lose you. Besides, I've become fond of you. It's probably the way you share your fleas. Very generous of you, but they can't eat me, they just irritate me."

Fionn looked carefully at the door, at its patterns of energy, and the diagram used to hold it there. The human mage who had done this was no Spathos. This was art and power. The dangerous one-every-ten-generations' level of human magecraft.

So naturally Fionn scratched a break in the pattern, and added another symbol or two. The mage had thought himself clever to use an invisible ink for this. Well, invisible to human eyes...now he would have a little surprise as the energy in that door acc.u.mulated and spread. The break allowed Finn to push the door open.

The inside was even stranger. It was quite a bit larger inside than it appeared outside. That was a neat piece of dimensional folding. Fionn looked for traps. Found none, bar the smell of decay and various exotic chemicals, rare materials and unusual compounds for the apparent vintage of the building. They advanced cautiously along the shadowy pa.s.sage. Fionn detected symbolic magic at fairly high levels behind one of the doors. He cracked it. Peered inside. It contained a planar orrery, from which a bright light shone patterns onto the floor area. That showed Vanaheim-spiky and ripped with fiords. And yes, there was a shadowy hall in miniature on it, moving slowly across the landscape on tiny muryan legs. "Hmm. 'As within, so without,' rather the cla.s.sic 'as above so below' formulation," said Fionn quietly. So that was how it moved. Dangerous, clever, and tricky. Going any further into the room, Fionn realized, would be even more dangerous. He'd find himself part of the symbolism. And he was too big to survive it.

They moved on. The next door was too heavily spell-guarded to get through quickly. But his nose told him: that was where the smell of decay and exotic chemicals came from. Also there was a fire in there.

"Keep a good few paces back, Dileas. This is no hedge-wizard. This is a great adept. And there is almost bound to be a trap," he said, sotto voce, in a pitch the dog could hear, but humans would not.

He looked carefully ahead, looking for magic, looking for betraying energy patterns. They'd come to a ramp, and there was an anomaly at the bottom. He could see part of the scripts of it...

And then, as he stepped onto the ramp, he was caught by a purely mechanical trap. The floor-obviously a circular sheet of segments-was on some kind of castors. He barely had time to yell "BACK!" before it had cascaded him into the spell-trap. There was a sharp discharge of magic. And Fionn tumbled into the trap-a sort of box at least twenty cubits deep. There was an opening at the top...but it hummed with energies. Examining it, Fionn could see that it was nothing more than an illusion of an opening. The box was actually solid-barring a fingernail-width gap along the lid, and a small grating in the lowest corner. Too small a grating for a mouse.

He was aware that he was being watched, from the "gap" he'd fallen through. She was, by all appearances, a beautiful woman with flawless skin. She regarded him with a sort of clinical interest. That wouldn't help him get out, of course. He was also aware that Dileas was behind her. "I wouldn't come any closer," said Fionn, hoping sound at least carried out of here. "This is a trap."

It appeared sound did. "I know. I built it. It is a one-way portal. The walls are adamantine, and the roof is fitted to a device which magically multiplies pressure manyfold. It will shortly crush you and your tissues will flow into the holding vats for the cauldron. It appears the creatures of smokeless flame overrated your cunning and prowess."

Fionn shrugged. "I took one step further than you are standing, because of the rolling floor. It could happen to you."

"The floor is now frozen until I reset it. As you are going to die...Agh!! No! Dog..."

She tried to turn and grab, but tumbled over the edge, and into the magical discharge. Fionn caught her to stop her landing on her head.

Dileas looked down at him. "Good dog!" said Fionn, surprised himself at the pride he felt in Dil's intelligence and ability to take initiative. "Don't come any closer."

The woman struggled. Lashed out at him. He caught her hand. She was bleeding where Dileas had bitten her. "Hitting me might make me angry," said Fionn, "and I think that is all that it could achieve. So stop it. Behave yourself."

If he'd hit her he could hardly have had more effect. "Don't you dare talk to me like that!"

"Why not?" asked Fionn sardonically. "Oh I know. You might put me in an adamantine trap and crush me to death."

She opened her mouth to scream. And then thought better of it. "You have killed me. But I will die like a queen!"

"Actually, I haven't killed anyone deliberately, yet. And we're not dead, yet."

"There is no way out of here," she said with a gloomy satisfaction.

"Seems very clean for something that has no exit," said Fionn mildly.

She pointed at the grid in the lowest corner. "The remains flush through there. The muryan come up it and clean out anything that is left."

"So how long before the roof comes down?" asked Fionn. He hoped that it would not be impossible for Dileas to stop. He could of course resist considerable pressure. But it depended on how much it was.

"It won't. I did not speak the words to activate it. We will starve or die of thirst in here."

Fionn hoped not. She smelled faintly ripe already. He objected to eating carrion, and he would live a lot longer than a human, "Surely your faithful henchmen, slaves, retainers..." best to know of those to keep Dileas informed.

"There are only the muryan in this part of the house. The cauldron-men I keep confined elsewhere. And the muryan will only come here to clean every two weeks unless ordered," she said dully. "So this is how it ends, so close, but yet so far."

"So close to what?" asked Fionn. "Seeing we are both doomed, you may as well tell me, and tell me why the creatures of smokeless flame have been telling you about me."

"Baelzeboul's master said that his master wanted you dead," she said. "Running the Cauldron of Gwalar takes a lot of resources, and they were willing to pay."

Fionn explored the trap with his vision, noting the energy flux points, thinking about the shape. "You are aware, Queen-I presume you are a queen of some sort-that the flame creature's middle name is treachery. Actually, even if it called itself Baelzeboul, its first name is treachery, middle name is treachery and all the rest are treachery too."

She raised herself up. "I am Queen Gwenhwyfach. It matters not who knows that now. And I know more about treachery than you can dream. That is why I have labored these fifty years. Lyonesse crumbles...and I am here."

"I am several thousand years old," said Fionn calmly, "and the flame creatures have tricked me a few times. They did you, this time. Baelzeboul-if it was the one who calls himself Baelzeboul-stands one below their great master. His master has no master, barring the First themselves. So they wanted me dead, did they? How did you know it was me?"

She drew two little crystal cubes from a pocket. Fionn looked at them, at his own visage, and that of Meb.

"Stranger and stranger," said Fionn. He hadn't seen one of those for millennia. "Me. And my Sc.r.a.p of humanity. I wouldn't have thought they hated us enough, or that we mattered enough. Or that they still had First-cubes."

"Your Sc.r.a.p of humanity? Dragons are now keeping people as slaves and she escaped?"

"I think I was more her babysitter," said Fionn, smiling at the thought. "But she is a human, yes. A very nice child, growing into a young woman of character and courage. The dog and I are exceptionally fond of her. I would strongly advise you against even thinking about as much as harming a hair on her head. Or you may find being trapped in an adamantine cage with a dragon is a very pleasant thing."

Something about his voice made her edge away. She caught herself doing so, and steadied her spine. "She is in Lyonesse. She will die. She is just a girl-child."

"That's what the flame creature said, was it?" said Fionn. "I suppose to flame creatures any human is fairly unimportant. But this one has the happy knack of making friends, and we don't think her unimportant. I think one of her friends smashed the fleet today. So, seeing as I am going to die of starvation, how about you tell me, Queen Gwenhwyfach, why you wish to destroy Lyonesse, and just who you are. Someone may as well hear the story." He yawned. "Sorry, it has been a long day. It's not that I find you boring."

"Lyonesse is mine. Mine to destroy for what they did to me."

"They all did something to you?" asked Fionn. "Every last one of its people, and they're all still alive, are they? You did say fifty years. Mind you, you are very well preserved."

"I am as I was seventy years ago, thanks to the Cauldron of Gwalar. And almost all of the ones who conspired against me are dust, dust or grist for the cauldron."

"So why bother then?" said Fionn, tracing patterns on the adamantine with his claws. "What did they do to you?"

"They stole my child. And that cost me my throne."

"I see," said Fionn. "Just a human girl-child, probably."

"She was a princess. My daughter! Even if she wasn't the son the king hoped for."

Fionn nodded. "A grave disappointment to kings, I have been told. No heir."

She laughed harshly. "He could have no heir. I made sure of that, but he didn't realize it. He didn't even know she was a girl."

"And her name was Anghared," said Fionn.

"How did you know?" she demanded, darkly suspicious. "No one knew. No one but the midwife. And she would never tell."

"The knowing of names is a gift of mine. I am afraid I knew your name too. I merely led you on, Gwenhwyfach. And you should never underestimate the treachery of the creatures of smokeless flame, and certainly not their masters. You see, the name of the human girl child in the crystal...is Anghared. I would guess by your posture that she is your daughter. There is something in the jawline that is similar, but you are otherwise not alike."

The queen of Shadow Hall shook her head. "Impossible. My daughter would be fifty-three years old, if she was still alive. And while I denied it for years, the conspirators must have killed her. I searched for her. And searched for her. I hunted for years with all my art and with all my skill. Every n.o.ble house, every hamlet. I decided they must have taken her over the Ways to hide her. I searched Annvn, Vanaheim...the Blessed Isles and onward."

"She was a lot further away. In a place where time moves slower," said Fionn.

"I can't believe you, dragon." said the queen, eyes narrowed.

Fionn shrugged "Why should I lie to you? I am trapped here, too. We're both doomed. You may as well tell me the whole sad story."

She looked at him intently. He said nothing. She would talk or she wouldn't. "It may be better for the telling," she said eventually. "I was walking back with my women. I drove them out while the babe was born, and only the midwife was in the room. But there I was, with the babe in swaddling clothes, going out of my chamber for the first time, and suddenly this great drawing magic sucked at her. As if a myriad arms, wrapped around her, pulling, pulling. I clung as hard as I could...I fell out of the window, trying to hold her. But I must have been stunned or..."

She sat in silence for a bit before obviously deciding to continue. "I woke in corpse bay, cold as death and without her. And she was not on the sand. I searched and searched. We do not drown. I couldn't go back without the child. I knew she'd been taken from me by enchantment, by my enemies from the northern parts, I thought. There was a faction that hated me. And they would claim I killed the child. I...I almost did when the midwife told me it was a girl. But she put the babe on my breast."

Slowly it came out. Fionn listened. Pieced parts together. She had been a powerful woman, and not afraid to make enemies. Deep in her pride and power.

Broken.

Convinced finally that it had been her husband's doing, when she had exhausted all the other foes.

"And why would that have been?" asked Fionn, keeping her talking.

"Because he was a fool. But he was the king." snapped Gwenhwyfach.

She said no more, and Fionn did not press it. But he had an inkling. The woman went on, talking of her capture of a muryan queen, and the gaining of her cauldron-which appeared to be an evasion of "murdered its guardian and stole it," and the gradual building of her forces with the device. Talking of how hard it was, as the ever-moving Ways to Lyonesse bled magic from the worlds she sought to raise against it.

She didn't explain how Lyonesse did this. But it helped Fionn to understand Dileas's changing of direction...and the smell of her and her creations now. And just how she administered to her own vanity in keeping herself flawless, in spite of the side effect of the smell. She herself only had the faintest taint. "Of course if they're fresher, they smell less," she said, in reply to his question. "But the cauldron merely requires the patterns of their being. I had to experiment to get the mixtures I wanted, as well as mere copies, to stir the war."

"Ah," he said. "Giants. It was very hard to kill. I presume the werewolves are yours too. Anyway, thank you for telling me so much. She is your daughter, and the magic that took her had nothing to do with Lyonesse or with politics at all. It was merely choosing the most powerful mage possible to balance out the absence of humans with that ability in Tasmarin. Tasmarin now achieves its own balance, and she has returned to where she came from. And now, I think I must leave."

"You can't. I built this trap to be inescapable."