The Golden Cage (14 page)

It was a strange sensation. He was sitting on the barrel in a storeroom beneath Castle Betel, but he was also in a clearing in the middle of a forest somewhere. Snow-capped mountains ringed the view, distant and glowing against a sky of deepest cloudless blue. And right in front of him a party of twenty or more dragons seemed to be engaged in some ceremony.

A
youngster, little more than a hatchling, knelt in front of a rude altar crafted from a fallen rock. Behind the altar several larger dragons stood tall and still, their heads bowed as if in prayer. In front of it a dragon so old and withered it seemed almost a dried husk mouthed the words he could hear, which overlaid Frecknock's mutterings. Melyn knew Draigiaith, but this dialect was so thick, the words so ancient-sounding, he could only understand the barest minimum. It seemed to be a naming ceremony, the hatchling being welcomed into some kind of extended family. He heard a name, Caradoc, and then a list of what may well have been ancestors' names. But as these continued they seemed to fade away, along with the scene itself, until he was once more in the storeroom staring at Frecknock. Her muttering had dwindled to almost nothing, and as he watched she fell silent and slumped forward as if exhausted. After a few moments of silence, she pulled herself together, straightened up, then rose on unsteady feet.

The two warrior priests stepped forward to bar her way, but Melyn stopped them with a shake of his head.

She walked up to him, holding out the ring. He took it from her, feeling a tingle of power in it not unlike the thrill he felt when he conjured his blade, or when he was in the presence of the Shepherd.

‘It's a naming ring,' Frecknock said, her voice trembling as if her resolve had finally left her, as if what she had seen was more terrible even than the slaughter of her extended family, her capture and enslavement. ‘The dragon you seek is called Caradoc, son of Edryd. He has a long and illustrious family history, according to the ring,
but I don't recognize any of it. I've no idea who he is or where he came from. But I can help you find him. At least, I can try.'

‘And why would you do that, sweet Frecknock? Are you still looking for a mate?'

Frecknock physically recoiled at his words, her face a picture of horror.

‘No, Your Grace. No! He is an abomination. By Rasalene and Arhelion, the moon and the sun, he cannot be allowed to walk Gwlad. He must be found. He must be stopped. He must be killed.'

Benfro stood on the edge of the cliff, gazing down over the waterfall, the river and the clearing beyond. Low spring sunlight picked out the hollows and rock-strewn areas he would have to avoid, and was it his imagination, or were the trees taller than they had been the previous autumn? The spiky conifers were in flower, fluffy pale green tassels hanging from the ends of their branches. It made them look slightly softer, but he knew that a collision with any of them would be at least painful.

‘Are you sure you're ready to do this?' Benfro looked to one side, seeing the image of Corwen hovering in the air. The old dragon seemed somehow less solid than he remembered, which was strange given that he was no more than an apparition anyway. His appearances had become less and less frequent too.

‘I have to try,' Benfro said. ‘I'm going mad stuck here all the time with nothing to do but scavenge in the forest for food.'

‘And treat Errol's ankles.'

‘He's
doing that himself now. I just had to reset the bones so they knit properly, didn't fuse together in one great big lump.'

‘What changed your mind, Benfro? Why did you decide to help him?'

‘I remembered when I was about seven. Ynys Môn broke his arm quite badly. My mother taught me about bones and how to heal them. She showed me how to mix up the right poultices, how to apply them and when to remove them. She was a good healer, but she didn't just heal dragons. She would use her skill to help anyone who needed it. She wouldn't have sulked around while Errol was in pain; she'd have taken on the job regardless of what she thought of him and his kind.'

‘Your mother could have been a great mage, if she'd wanted to. But she chose to be a healer instead. And a teacher, it would appear.'

Benfro shrugged, feeling the breeze on his face and chest. ‘She tried to teach me to listen to what people were saying, but she failed there. You told me to ask Errol for help and I ignored you. If I'd done as you said, I could have saved hundreds of those dragons.'

‘Don't punish yourself, Benfro. Your reaction was perfectly understandable, especially given your circumstances. How long had you been without proper sleep? How long has Magog been working away at you, building up your hate and shrinking your compassion? His influence is insidious. Trust me; I know.'

Benfro looked more closely at the old dragon. The image was definitely less substantial, and as he let the lines ease into his vision, he could see a halo of sickly red
surrounding Corwen's head and shoulders. It shocked him to see how far Magog had spread his foul control. He reached out to touch his tutor, but Corwen drifted back from him like a ghost.

‘He's destroying you.' Benfro felt a stab of guilt as he realized that this was his fault. He had taken Magog's jewel from the bottom of the pool. He had carried it halfway across the land to Corwen's clearing. The old dragon would be fine if it hadn't been for him.

‘I'm not finished yet,' Corwen said. ‘Don't worry about me, Benfro. I can look after myself. And I can keep Magog from giving you his full attention.'

‘But you can't easily maintain your illusion any more, can you? You can't appear to me at will. When you do, you risk losing a little bit more of yourself.'

‘It's not quite that bad. Not yet, at least. I'll be around for a good while yet. You just won't be seeing so much of me.'

‘There must be something we can do. Some way to break the link.'

‘There are many things that you can do, Benfro. And the first of them is to learn to use those wings Magog gave you. I seem to remember that's what you were working on before he whisked you off to Mount Arnahi. So if your back is really healed, you must get back to your practising.'

Benfro felt the soft rebuke in Corwen's words and realized how foolish he had been. The old dragon had lived thousands of years, forgotten more than he would ever know, understood the subtle arts in all their mystery. Who was he, Benfro, to worry about the likes of Corwen? The mage would not have willingly put himself into deadly
peril, and even if he had, there was nothing that Benfro could do about it. He had to trust that Corwen knew what he was doing and accept what teachings the old dragon was prepared to pass on to him.

Standing on the cliff edge, he unfurled his wings, let the sun warm them. The muscles in his back stretched and took their new load. The knot of pain that had been his constant companion these past months was no more than an area of stiffness, a slight limit to his mobility that felt good to be stretched. Bending his knees slightly, Benfro allowed his body to tip forward and launched himself into the air.

His first thought was panic. He fell far faster than he remembered, the ground hurtling towards him like a falling tree. For far too long he was paralysed, unsure what he was supposed to be doing. In his dreams it had always come naturally, and when he had launched himself from this cliff before, he had managed to swoop majestically down before climbing effortlessly up again. But now he was as helpless as a hatchling.

At the last possible moment instinct kicked in. He swept his outstretched wings forward in a desperate lunge and felt his fall slow, his motion turn from the vertical to the horizontal. Whipping them back, he repeated the action and felt his wing tips brush the grass. It tickled his belly scales and tugged at his tail until with a couple more wing beats he finally began to climb. Only then did he remember the trees.

Looking ahead, Benfro could tell that they were too high for him to clear. He would have to bank and turn, head back the other way and try to leave the clearing on
the other side. But he had never before turned so sharply, so close to the ground. He wasn't particularly scared of heights, but his momentum was such that he knew hitting anything, even with the tip of a wing, would hurt and probably do serious damage.

In the end there wasn't much time for thought. The approaching trees focused his mind quite enough. He banked hard, felt the temperature drop as he flew into shadow, then warm again as he levelled out and sped towards the centre of the clearing. He was low, almost too close to the ground. Wings working as hard as he could remember ever having worked, he fought his way up into the sky. And then with a few great sweeps of his wings Benfro was above the clearing. He scanned the canopy, marking the shapes of nearby hills and holding them in his mind. He didn't want to lose himself, nor stray too far from home. The last thing he needed was to run out of strength and end up crashing into the trees.

A screech overhead diverted his attention. He looked up to see two buzzards wheeling in the warming air. Not sure whether he was still tapping into another dragon's experiences or simply doing something innate, he climbed towards the birds, who eyed him with suspicion, and spread his wings wide. He felt the warmth of the updraught on the undersides of his wings almost as a pleasure. Like having his brow stroked by his mother, or tucking into a feast in the great hall with Ynys Môn sitting on one side of him, Meirionnydd on the other. What would all three of them have made of him now, circling in the rising air, testing the edges of the invisible column with wing tips far more sensitive than he had realized.

By
the time the thermal had grown too weak to lift him further, he was high above the forest. He could glide for a hundred miles in any direction, lock his wings open and just go. East, the sun cast shadows on the cliff-like wall of the Rim mountains, far closer than he had thought them. West, the forest rolled on into hazy distance. To the north Mount Arnahi was a siren call, even blanketed in cloud. South, and he fancied he could make out the stone mount of Cenobus climbing out of the endless undulating green.

Benfro was struck with the idea of flying there now. He could force his way into the repository and undo the work of his dream self. Pull all the jewels from their alcoves and return them to the pile. Before he had even begun to dismiss the thought as foolish, his wings were turning him that way, angling into the long slow glide that covered the ground with such deceptive speed.

‘No!' He had to shout the word to make himself obey. He didn't have the strength to make it that far, even if he could find other thermals on the way to help him along. With an effort of will, he banked and turned again, heading back for the clearing. It wasn't far, still safe and familiar just a few wing beats away. He circled, losing height as he sized up the ground, looking for the best place to land.

Something made him look up, back to the south and invisible Cenobus, too far for even his sharp vision. And yet in that moment he saw it as clearly as if it were just a few hundred paces away. It was unchanged from the time he had left, the ruined buildings poking from the top of the mount like the rotted stumps of teeth on the jaw of some gargantuan beast. Only there was something
moving around the ruined tower, circling it like a moth around a candle.

It was another dragon. And it was flying. It appeared to be looking for a place to land, hugging one hand to its chest as if it were injured. It looked strong, bold, and Benfro was reminded of the dragons who had attacked him in his strange dream. This wasn't one of them, but he radiated the same aura of difference, the same casual mastery of the air, the same impression of violent rage.

It was as he was wondering how he could see this beast from so far away, how he could know so much about it, that Benfro realized he had stopped beating his own wings. Too late, he looked down to see the ground rushing towards him. He thrashed and twisted at the air in a desperate attempt to slow himself, to position himself over the river.

He succeeded in one of those aims.

Errol sat outside the cave entrance, his back to the warm rock, feeling the sun on his face for the first time in too long. He watched as Benfro leaped from the cliff top above, wincing and ducking instinctively as the dragon almost crashed into the ground, then the trees, before clawing his way up into the air. Still, it was a magnificent sight to see him fly, wings fully outstretched, wheeling slowly up like some incredible eagle.

‘He needs to practise his take-off and landing a bit more.' Errol didn't need to look round to know that the old dragon Corwen had joined him. ‘How are your ankles?'

Errol looked down at his legs, pulling up the loose
material of his breeks to show the scarred flesh, still slightly swollen but no longer livid red. They were stiff, and he had no doubt they would never be quite as good as they had been before King Ballah's torturer had set about him with a hammer, but they were remarkably free of pain.

‘Much better, thank you,' he said. ‘I don't know what Benfro did to them, but it was miraculous. I doubt any of Melyn's surgeons could have done as well. Not even Usel.'

‘If it had been Benfro's mother, you'd never know they'd been broken in the first place. Morgwm could heal almost anything. You're lucky she taught her son so much in the few years they had together.'

‘I never realized she was a dragon,' Errol said, hearing the name and remembering it from years earlier.

‘What?'

‘Morgwm. My mother used to speak of her. She said that Morgwm had taught her most of the herb lore and healing she knew. I always assumed she was some wise woman.'

‘She was wise,' Corwen said, ‘but also quite the most stubborn dragon I ever met. She studied with me for over a century before deciding to be a healer rather than a mage. I still don't know what it was changed her mind. She could have been great, far more skilled than me.'