Dog And Dragon Part 27

"It is defended and provisioned," said Aberinn. "And we control the Changer."

"What good will that do?" asked the chatelaine.

Vivien tiptoed away, not waiting, going back to the women's quarters. For a long time she stood in the pa.s.sage outside the bower. She went in. It was empty. She took a deep breath and looked among the embroidery frames. Found the one she was looking for. Marveled at the st.i.tches. And got up and did what no castle lady would do: she went down to the barracks. It was in a ferment, a cheerful happy hubbub. It also hushed the moment she walked in. She had two sons here. Likely lads, good squires, walking in a famous father's footsteps. It could have been worse, because they a.s.sumed she'd come to see them.

They were desperately embarra.s.sed to see her there. "Mother, you shouldn't be here," said the older, Cadoc. Melehan just stared at his mother, as if he could make her go away by eyes alone.

"I need to speak to you," she said.

"Come, we'll escort you back to the bower," said Cadoc, taking her elbow.

She found her courage. "No. What I need to say to you may as well be heard by everyone. We need to leave Dun Tagoll. The mage's gilded crows bring word that our foes are banished. The Defender has won, Lyonesse is at peace. Prince Medraut and Mage Aberinn have decided to keep the gate of Dun Tagoll closed on the Defender. To keep things as they are. I should have taken you and gone with her the first time, when she wanted to leave. I will not make that mistake again. We leave now."

There was a silence.

Then one of the grizzled veterans spoke. "How do you know this, Lady Vivien?"

"I have just heard it with my own ears. Do you doubt me? The gilded crows brought the mage news and sight of the land. You saw them fly and you've seen some return. Our foes are gone. Out there the peasants plow again. They've come out of the woods. Left the shelter of Telas and the other forts. They know it's over. Do you think I would risk my sons' lives for nothing? It's over. The Defender has come. There will be a new king. But those who rule here do not wish it to be over."

"It's true enough," said one of the men-at-arms who had ridden to Dun Telas. "I saw some of the neyfs on the ride. No beast so they'd yoked two of them to the plow."

He stood up. "I'm not one to stand against my sworn liege. But I'll not hold Dun Tagoll against her. She's a good la.s.s, that one. I saw her at the queen's window, and I saw her put that axe in front of her face and face down the Fomoire. I'm for leaving."

"Aye," said the veteran. "Me too." And then another...A little later they spilled out of the barracks. Some went to the kitchens, to their peculiars, and others to the stables to get horses, Vivien among them. The grooms had liked Anghared, it seemed. They provided horses, and were mounting themselves. The men-at-arms had gone to the gate guard, and the gate was opened.

A few minutes later the entire courtyard was full. The gate was wide and people had already begun to walk and ride out.

The noise brought Prince Medraut and the Mage Aberinn and Lady Cardun out of the wizard's tower.

"What is happening here?" demanded Prince Medraut.

On the causeway, Vivien could hear his voice.

"Keep riding," she said to her sons. The causeway was no place to gallop, or she would have told them to do that.

"We're going to join the Defender, Prince Medraut," shouted someone.

"Close those gates! Get within, all of you! I command here! You will follow my orders."

"Ach. We'll take orders from her instead," shouted someone else. "You cannot stop us, Medraut."

"Go then. Be masterless, landless men. When the next invasions come, Dun Tagoll will be closed to those who leave. There will be no fortress whose walls cannot be breached to shelter you. There will be no magical multiplication of scant rations. You will starve or be killed."

"I can stop you," said Aberinn's cold voice, carrying above the noise.

Vivien knew how dangerous the narrow causeway was. "Run," she yelled.

They did, the press of people all scrambling for the headland.

And behind them the gates of Dun Tagoll swung closed, crushing the last few who tried to force their way out of the gates.

But they'd won free to the headland. "We will gallop now," said Vivien.

Then felt the blow and then, as she fell from the horse, the pain.

Someone yelled: "Run. They're firing the scorpios at us."

The next Vivien knew, she was surfacing as someone bathed her face. She looked up into the tear-filled face of her younger son. "Don't die, Mother, please don't die."

She was not sure she would be able to do that for him. "In the...little bag...on the saddle. Tapestry. With black dragon. Give it to her. Ask kindness to you...my sake. Cormac..." she whispered. Maybe she would be with him now.

"It would seem," said Finn, "that the last of Lyonesse's foes has retreated in some disarray. Now all that remains is Dun Tagoll itself."

"Do we have to do anything about it?" asked Meb. "I've seen Aberinn's crows. He knows what has happened."

"I think it is necessary to deal with this Changer device. The levels of magical energy it has caused to flow into Lyonesse...are not good. Some of it must run back to where it came from, Sc.r.a.p. And then I think things can return to normal here."

Meb sighed. "I don't really want to go back. But let us go down there and see what we can do."

"Let's not use more magic than you have to, Sc.r.a.p. It's quite unstable as it is. And every time you summons something...it has knock-ons. They use magic too freely here anyway."

"My magic is quite different to theirs, though."

"Part of it is. The part with fertility and life, yes. The rest is very human magic. They just draw and chant to achieve their visualization of the symbols. They complete things they have a little of, physically. You do the same, but the entire image is within you, and that part of the the thing-it's essence, as it were-is also within you. But it should be used with caution, because it draws from within you, and of course, makes work for me."

"Lady Anghared," said a respectful man-at-arms. "There are people here from Dun Tagoll. Shall I bring them?"

She smiled at him. Nodded. All she really had to give was a smile, but they seemed happy with that. She felt faintly guilty. By virtue of fighting the invaders, she had somehow ended up largely running the country and had absolutely no idea how to do so. Fortunately, she had Finn, and, oddly, Neve, who was proving very good at telling others what to do. "Maybe it has all resolved itself," she said hopefully.

A few minutes later she realized it hadn't. And that it would have to be dealt with, right now.

They were Vivien's sons. She recognized them although they were white-faced and plainly had been crying. The older one bowed and handed her a piece of tapestry. It was her own work. A black dragon...and it had blood on it. "My mother asked that we give this to you. Just before she died," said the older boy, his voice tight. "It has her blood on it. They shot her in the back from the walls as we fled." He started crying. Tried to control himself. "She brought most...of Dun Tagoll to your banner, Defender. She asked a kindness...for my brother and me, for her sake."

Meb found it hard to talk past the lump in her throat. She nodded. "What I can do, I will. She was good to me."

"I just ask that I..."

"We!" interrupted the younger boy.

"We can have a part in bringing down Dun Tagoll, in the downfall of Medraut and Aberinn."

"We go to achieve that end," said Meb. "And...I know your mother worried about you being provided for. Having a place was important to her. I will see that you have one. I promise."

So by afternoon the greater part of Meb's raggle-taggle army was heading west. And Meb had put a stop to the flying of the gilded crows again.

"There is no point in going to the headland. Dun Tagoll will stand any siege and its walls repair themselves," said Meb. "They have scorpios and catapults, and hot pitch. But there is a little hidden door at the back of the zawn to the south. The knockers said that leads to the tide engines and up to the wizard's tower. If Neve's count of those who left is right, then there can't be more than seventy people still inside Dun Tagoll, and very few of those are soldiers. Courtiers, a few servants. Medraut and his inner circle of haerthmen."

"I'll go and scout it then," said Finn. "Before you, or Dileas, argue or try and come with me, I can swim across, transformed into a seal at high tide. The knockers will tell us if there are any guards outside the cave, and I can swim right in and have a look at the spellcraft. I promise I will go no further. And you can think about crossing the gully in the meanwhile. I'd suggest making a pontoon-way of small boats and planks. I'll interfere with the weather a little. A bit of energy adjustment and we'll have a sea mist tonight."

By dark Fionn was back, pleased with himself. "It was a bolt-hole, I think. A neat piece of spellwork, but rubbed out now. I had words with the knockers to stop them going in before us, in case there are other alarms and defenses. How is the pontoon-bridge?"

"We've had some of the Lyonesse n.o.bility exercise their magic," said Meb. "We took the coracle apart, gave a fragment to each of them and had them apply their magic. We've got planks to put across the top. Now all we need is low tide."

"That comes, as does the mist," said Fionn.

And it did. At dusk a column of men came down. A few paddled across in a coracle with the ropes and soon the floating bridge was in place. There were a good two thousand men there.

"They'll have to be deaf up there if they don't realize something is going on," said Fionn, grumpily.

The little door proved no match for Fionn. But the narrow pa.s.sage beyond was going to be something of an impediment to the invaders. Getting thousands up was going to take time. Fionn went ahead. He knew better than to tell Meb-or Dileas-to stay back more than a few paces. The narrow pa.s.sage brought them out into huge caverns. The knockers provided light, showing the great iron chains and sluices and a waterwheel that drove the engines far above.

The stairwell led upwards and upwards. Fionn looked and listened intently and, when he got to a certain point, called a knocker miner out from the crowd following. "There's a hollow just behind this wall."

"That'll be the wine cellar. We used to visit it. There are a few of our pa.s.sages into it," said the chief Jack, with a toothy smile.

"Send a few of your lads in there to see if it is empty. Not of wine. Of people. And if it is, we'll have this wall down and send some men that way."

About a minute later the knocker was back. "Just the chief steward. Drunk. He's locked himself in. By what he's muttering, the murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.ds upstairs will have no more wine even if he can't get out. The wine is dreadful. My lads will have that little wall down in no time at all. And quietly too."

"Good. We'll go on up while you do that."

They did. Another two flights of stairs and Dileas growled.

Fionn could hear him now, too. The dog had keen ears and a keener sense of smell. They advanced slowly on the human they could hear snoring on the other side of the door.

Then there were shouts and yells and the sound of swordplay in the distance. Fionn pulled the door open. The men coming in through the cellars must have encountered some resistance.

The door opened onto the courtyard, at the foot of Aberinn's tower. The guard who had been asleep at the tower door was still trying to wake up when a sheepdog bit him, and rough hands grabbed him and threw him down as more men spilled up out into the moonlight.

Fionn and Meb had not waited. The key here was not the castle. It was the mage's tower. And the iron-studded door was locked. Meb swung her axe at it, the magical blade cut through the bolts, and they were into Aberinn's tower.

There were signs that the mage had left in haste. Part of a machine was scattered onto the floor, in contrast to the neatness of the other tables.

Outside there was screaming and shouting.

Here, only a gilded crow looked at them from its cage.

"Upstairs!"

So they ran up towards them. "Stop!" shouted Fionn.

They did and he disarmed the little cross-bow miniature set to fire across the pa.s.sage. Disarmed two other trap-spells.

They advanced cautiously. There was a great creaking sound. The next room was a ma.s.s of cogs and interlocking wheels-a great driver for the planar orrery above.

And that was where they found Aberinn. Behind a phalanx of forty-nine armed and fully armored men, that advanced as one.

Meb looked at the small army that faced them. "They're not real! It's a broomstick and some tin."

"Curse you," screamed Aberinn, pulling a lever down. Machinery began to clank, and he took the long lever and ran to the stair up to the roof, Dileas tearing his robe.

And there on the roof, they cornered him, standing on the edge of the parapet.

"Come any closer and I will throw the key to the Changer. I may get it into the sea from here."

"Give up, Mage. The Defender has come," said one of the men who had come up with them. Everyone wanted to be there with her.

"Defender!" spat Aberinn. "You fools! I made that prophecy up. I invented it. I did it so that when my son returns I could use some stupid woman to get rid of the regent easily. So I could avoid the silly plots in the meantime. Lyonesse needed me. I preserved it. And my son still lives and only he, because he is my blood, will be able to find the ancient font. Without it Lyonesse will never have a king who is the Land. It will never be able to defeat the invaders."

When the black dragon had opened the castle, he had broken Aberinn's circle of protection. Queen Gwenhwyfach, sitting peering into her basin, had at last been able to see into Dun Tagoll. She'd seen how Medraut fled to the women's quarters and was dragged out by two young squires.

She'd seen surrender and the bloodshed she'd dreamed of.

She was quite empty of emotion now, as her daughter and the black dragon faced her former lover across the roof of the tower.

And now she understood what had driven him.

He'd never known that she'd given birth to a daughter.

When she'd found out about King Geoph's little pleasures with her chambermaid Elis, when Gwenhwyfach herself could not fall pregnant...She'd gone to Aberinn, and the magics they'd worked had made sure the king would sire no more b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Then she'd needed a lover to see to that herself.

His spells on cord-blood told him their child lived.

It did not tell Aberinn the s.e.x of that child.

Fionn could feel the build of energies. It worried him. These humans had no idea what forces they dealt with messing about as they did with the planes and subplanes. "Let us stop your Changer. I think I may be able to solve the mystery of this son you wait for. I saw the workings you had below. They're centered on your blood."

"All is made for my blood and my son. And I will destroy you now, woman!" screamed Aberinn. "It's too late. The Changer is set so it will try to change...when there are no Ways to open! All that energy will pour in here, and the tower will burn. I just had to hold you for a few more minutes. I have the key." And he threw it, out into the darkness. "And now no one does! You will all die with me."

"You fool," said Fionn. "You've probably destroyed Lyonesse, let alone this tower. And it should have been obvious to you who your child was. Dileas, NO!"

The sheepdog had been edging forward quietly. He took a nip at a skinny calf. Just as he might have worried a recalcitrant sheep into moving.

The sheep would have pulled away too.

But it probably would not have been standing on a narrow parapet eighty cubits above a stone-flagged courtyard.