Dreamwalker (39 page)

‘What should I do?’ He asked and received a broad smile from the medic as a reward for his enthusiasm.

‘First we need to get the lid off. You take the bottom, where it’s lighter.’

Errol grasped the stone as well as he could and together they managed to half lift, half slide it off. It fell with a loud clatter that echoed in the empty hall, almost tipping onto the floor before coming to rest alongside the casket. A waft of foul air filled his nose and he stepped back, coughing before inching close again to get a better look.

The corpse was withered and shrivelled, its skin turned black and leathery with the years but not decayed. The princess had been buried in a long white gown of thin material, no more than a bed dress, really. Her bare feet were twisted around as if she were in terrible pain and the tightening of her skin had opened her mouth in a silent, agonised scream.

‘That’s strange,’ Usel said, peering into the casket at the body and sniffing. ‘She’s better preserved than I’d have expected.’

‘The casket was well sealed,’ Errol said.

‘Even so, her skin looks like it’s been tanned. If she’d just dried up I’d’ve expected her to be more grey. Here, help me lift her out.’

Errol stared, aghast for a moment, then thought about what he was being asked to do. It was no worse than dealing with some of the infected wounds and growths that his mother’s patients had brought to their little cottage in the woods. Better, in many ways, since Princess Lleyn had been dead for fourteen years. Something Usel had said suddenly registered in his mind.

‘When did she die?’ Errol asked. ‘You said it was fourteen years ago.’

‘Indeed I did. I guess you were too young to remember, but most people will tell you the story. Tragic, it was. She died on her sister’s birthday.’

‘Queen Beulah’s birthday?’ Errol asked.

‘Of course, Queen Beulah’s birthday. Why?’

‘That was the day I was born,’ Errol said, looking at the corpse with a strange feeling of connection. ‘I was born the day she died.’

‘Well don’t worry yourself about it, I’m sure a great many people died the day you were born. Now let’s have a quick look over this body. It’s amazing what you can discover after even this long in the ground. I can tell she was poisoned, for one thing.’

‘Poisoned?’ Errol asked.

‘Yes, and a very nasty potion too. I haven’t seen it used in a long while. It grows in Fo Afron on the other side of the Sea of Tegid. It’s called gallweed and it kills slowly, leaching all the life out of a person over time. They grow steadily thinner and weaker until they just don’t have the strength to live anymore.’

‘But how can you tell?’ Errol asked.

‘Well, first there’s a distinctive aroma to the corpse. You wouldn’t notice it when she was buried, but now her body’s dried out a little, you can smell it.’

Errol lowered his nose once more to the casket and sniffed. There was surprisingly little odour now that the initial stale air had been expelled, but the body did smell very faintly.’

‘It’s like spices. Ginger…no, cinnamon and cloves. No, that’s not right either.’

‘You’re in the right area though, Errol,’ Usel said. ‘Now let’s lift her out.’

Errol reached into the casket and put his hands under the thin calves. With that first touch, he shuddered involuntarily, as if someone were walking on his grave. A flurry of images flashed through his mind: a grey-haired man wiping his brow with a damp cloth; a woman dressed as a serving maid helping him out of bed; a lantern swinging with the rhythmic motion of a horse-drawn wagon; a cottage in a clearing in the forest, curiously large; a fully grown dragon peering down at him with a look of infinite sadness in her eyes. And then a terrible pain ripped through him, overwhelmed him. He felt his legs give out, and as he plunged into blackness, the crash of falling knives echoed in the stone-carved hall.

*

‘Where’s Inquisitor Melyn? Have him report to me immediately.’

‘Your Majesty, the Inquisitor left for Emmass Fawr at first light this morning.’

Beulah cursed herself for forgetting. There was so much to remember that even a conversation held just hours ago had slipped her mind. The servant who had come running at her call knelt before the Obsidian Throne gently shaking. His fear filled the great hall with an odious stench.

‘Leave me,’ Beulah said, then turned to the guards who stood either side of the dais, supposedly there to protect her from assassins, though any who made it this far would find her far from helpless.

‘All of you, leave,’ she said. ‘I wish to be alone.’

For a moment she thought one of the warriors was going to protest. No doubt if the Inquisitor found out that they had deserted their posts, even on a direct order from the queen, they would be publicly flogged and stripped of their ranks. She didn’t care. If Melyn was on his way back to Emmass Fawr that meant he would most likely be on the calling road. And that meant that she could contact him, with difficulty. She didn’t want soldiers and servants clogging up the calm of the Neuadd with their petty fears and worries, their endless thoughts about gambling, drinking and whoring.

‘You may guard the entrance doors,’ Beulah said to the captain of her guard as he marched his men from the hall. She had no doubt he would have done it anyway, supplementing the soldiers who already patrolled outside. It didn’t matter to her as long as they were on the other side of the walls.

‘Your majesty need only call and we will be here,’ the captain said, bowing deeply. Beulah scowled at him as he left, then pulled herself together, gathered her wits about her and sank once more into the power that was the throne.

It felt like a warm bath, soothing away the aches and worries of her new reign. As she slipped from the physical world, so the discomfort of the cold stone seat evaporated, leaving her relaxed, poised, ready to embark on her journey.

She paused a moment to consider the Neuadd from this altered perspective. It was still the same hall, magnificent to the point of overkill. Its great pillars soared up into the carved arches of its ceiling; the mirror-smooth floor reflected the morning sun, filtered into a thousand different colours as it passed through the great windows to either side; the Obsidian Throne towered over her, black and threatening as a nightmare, yet alive somehow with the power of the world. And still there was something different about the hall that she couldn’t put her finger on.

Beulah came to this other place often. It was the starting point for her forays into the minds of her nobles and the rich merchants of Candlehall. She understood now why the House of Balwen had allowed the great city to swamp the hills surrounding the palace. From here she could eavesdrop on the thoughts and conversations of any of the city’s inhabitants. But it required skill and a mental discipline she doubted her father had ever mastered. Nor her grandfather before him. Beulah wondered what they had felt when sitting on this great throne. Both of them were of the House of Balwen. Both of them would have had some natural ability with the grym and the powers of magic. Yet both were to some extent weak-willed. Sitting on the throne must have been a kind of torture, hearing the constant chattering thoughts and anxieties of a hundred thousand subjects all around them. No wonder then that her grandfather had spent much of his reign in Ystumtuen and at hunt, like his father before him. And perhaps it explained why her father had resorted to drink. What had happened to the once noble line of warriors that it had produced three generations of such weak-willed men? False kings who would make peace with dragons, with Llanwennog; would even barter their own flesh and blood for a quiet life and a soft bed? She would restore the pride of the Balwen name and make the Twin Kingdoms great once more.

Concentrating hard, Beulah coalesced her thoughts into an image of herself. On the edge of her senses she could hear the clamour of the city, feel the presence of sweating, toiling peasants, avaricious merchants and effete gentry. Even the mindless existence of the pack animals could be a distraction that had to be pushed to one side. Dogs were particularly hard to ignore with their simple, single-minded drives: eat; sleep; breed. Focussing away from them, she cast her mind out across the hall, out the door, through the palace and along the northern road.

She went quickly, not lingering to be sidetracked by the endless possibilities of the city’s mindscape. Past the old wall and the Warrior Gate, it became easier as the distractions lessened. She sped up, covering the ground at a speed no horseman could hope to match. Faster she went, faster still until it felt like she flew just a few feet above the road.

Even here, in the dream, she could feel its call, insidious and compelling. The ancient spell that had imbued it with its power was as potent as the day Inquisitor Hardy had cast it. Life seemed so much more complicated now than it had back then. Beulah longed for the days of strong kings and iron rule. What would Brynceri have done about the endless rounds of diplomacy and bureaucracy? What would he have done about upstart dragons? She couldn’t help but think it would have involved fire and the sword. In both instances

Up ahead, far in the distance, Beulah could make out the mind-shape of a troop of men riding at a trot. In an instant she was with them, moving silent and unseen through the ranks of their thoughts. They were pale, ill-defined beings in this realm, some, where the skill burned brighter, more substantial than others. A few were no more than wisps flickering above the solid forms of their horses. Only their leader appeared as fully formed in the aethereal as in the physical. Melyn rode at the head of the column, bolt upright in the saddle. He appeared younger than his years, as if his mind harboured a vanity that even his prodigious strength of will had not been able to dampen.

‘Queen Beulah, it’s good to see you,’ he said, without turning. It was a small show of his superiority in the ways of magic and Beulah hated him for it as much as she cursed herself for not trying harder. Occasionally she managed to catch him unawares, but obviously not today.

‘I’m sorry, my queen,’ Melyn said, turning to face her. ‘Forgive an old man his little games. What brings you to the ghost road?’

‘This morning, not an hour ago, I saw a dragon flying over the city,’ Beulah said. Melyn flinched at the words as he always did when the subject was brought up.

‘I assume this wasn’t a physical dragon,’ the Inquisitor said. ‘No one else saw it.’

‘I was as I am now,’ Beulah said. ‘There are few in the Twin Kingdoms who have this skill, and only I can sit on the Obsidian Throne. But if any others were watching, they’d have seen it. It flew, Melyn. It had wings the size of a house. It circled the citadel as if it were looking for a nest.’

‘You tried to ensnare it?’

‘Of course,’ Beulah said. ‘I thought I had it, too, but it escaped. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. I might believe I’d killed it, but I can’t be sure. It must have escaped me.’

Melyn sat silently on his horse for a while. Beulah floated along the road beside him, fighting back the anger that retelling of the intruder had kindled in her. At the time she had been so furious she had crashed out of her dreamstate and almost fallen from the throne. She needed to retain control of her emotions.

‘You’re fading, Beulah. Get a grip on yourself,’ Melyn said. The rebuke stung her, but years of training kept her focussed.

‘What are we to do about this?’ She asked. ‘I can’t have these creatures infiltrating the aethereal. You know as well as I do that I must have total control over it to succeed in our plans.’

‘My warrior priests will seek it out,’ Melyn said. ‘There’re few enough of them left and we’ve archives accounting where all of them live. Your intruder will be captured and brought before you. It’s up to you what you decide to do with it.’

‘I wish I had your confidence,’ Beulah said. ‘Both in the skill of your warriors and in the accuracy of your lists.’

‘My lady is too harsh,’ Melyn said. ‘Even if our archives weren’t accurate, the intruder would’ve come from nearby. Dragons have only a rudimentary ability to exist in the upper sphere, as well you know.’

‘Nevertheless it came to Candlehall, to the Neuadd. It was drawn here,’ Beulah said. ‘And it was strong enough to fight me. This was no accident. Do what you have to at Emmass Fawr. Consult your archives and deploy your warriors, but I think this creature will be back before long. I expect you to lead the hunt for it yourself.’

‘Of course, your highness,’ Melyn said, bowing his head to her image. Beulah stopped in the road and let the troop pass her by. She waited for a few minutes, watching as they dwindled into the distance along the arrow-straight track. Overhead the sky was grey-blue and flat, as it always looked in this place. She scanned it for signs of movement, but could see only birds. On a whim, she reached out for one of them, grasping it with an invisible hand and squeezing the life out of it. She was reminded of her father on the dancefloor at her birthday ball. This tiny, feathered creature was no different, really. It had a simple life-force and a rudimentary intelligence. Without remorse, she relieved it of both. There was a faint, startled flash of anxiety and then the bird disappeared. Beulah imagined that anyone actually there that morning would have seen a crow fly across the sky and then suddenly drop down dead for no reason. It amused her to have such a power over even the most insignificant of her subjects. But at the same time it angered her to know that other creatures walked the upper sphere, flew in its skies in defiance of her. It would not be for much longer.