May Earth Rise (11 page)

The next morning Madryn had, without comment, been sitting in the Druid’s Alcove off of the High King’s golden hall. Gwen had joined her and they had begun her lessons again. That had been weeks ago, just a day after Arthur and the others had left her here while they traveled to Caer Siddi to free the Master Smiths. She had argued with Arthur hard and long about that, for she had wanted to go. But Arthur had said no. He had said that Aergol had insisted that Gwen be taught, saying that it was dangerous to leave her in possession of unpredictable powers.

As her mother had told her so long ago, Aergol explained again. The power of the Druids could not be reached in the same way as the Dewin and the Bards grasped theirs. For them, they must be in a state of relaxation, of meditation, and the crystal triskale of the Dewin and the harp music of the Bards were tools to help put them in that state. Of course, after a time, neither the triskale nor the harp was needed and an experienced Dewin or Bard could simply drop into the necessary state without further thought.

But a Druid could not access the powers of the Mother through relaxation or meditation. It was only through intense concentration that these powers could be touched, held, and used responsibly. For druidic powers could be released in another way—in a highly emotional state, an unstable state of mind—and then the gods and goddesses help those that were in the way of an untrained Druid.

When a Druid was young, their teaching began. When they were little their powers were weak and easily controlled by their teachers. But Gwen was a young woman. And her powers were considerable, though raw and untrained. She was a danger and she knew it. So she tried, even though sometimes it made her angry.

And she had learned to control that anger. For whenever she did begin to get angry Madryn would end the lesson. And once Madryn decided to end it, there was no persuading her otherwise.

Once, and once only, Gwen had been angry enough to lash out at Madryn, hoping to frighten the Druid into continuing the lesson. But when she had pushed out with her powers with all her might, trying to shove Madryn from the alcove and spill her onto the floor she had received a ringing slap both across her face and inside her head. She had reeled from the blow and it had been Gwen who ended up sprawled across the floor.

“You hit me!” Gwen had said, more in astonishment than anger.

“You did it to yourself,” Madryn had said calmly as she rose and smoothed her brown and green robe over her hips. The Druid had begun to walk out of the High King’s hall.

“Wait!” Gwen had called as she ran after Madryn. “I won’t get angry again. I promise. Please.”

“No more for the next week,” Madryn had said implacably. “I will not try to teach a brat.”

“Please—”

“No.” Madryn had stopped then and turned back to Gwen. “What will you do now, Gwynhwyfar ap Rhoram var Rhiannon? Will you try to hurt me in your anger?”

“No,” Gwen had whispered, hanging her head. “No.”

“I will not change my mind,” Madryn had gone on. “You will have no lessons for the next week. You will not even try to use your powers. Is that understood?”

And Gwen, tamed at last, had nodded miserably. She did understand. After so long, she finally did. She was a menace if she could not control herself. She was a liability to Kymru. More importantly, she was a liability to Arthur. And that thought had startled her, for she had not known that it was important to her. But it was.

Now, sitting in the Druids’ Alcove, with Madryn’s eye on her, she rubbed the tips of her fingers across the dwyvach-breichled. The spirals and whorls and circles seemed to move of themselves beneath her fingertips. She closed her eyes and saw the spirals and circles incised in glowing emerald green across the inner darkness. She concentrated, following the patterns, plunging into the maze and finding her way out again.

Her heart quickened as she felt dusty granules of earth brush across her fingers and golden stalks of grain brush across her open palm; she smelled the scent of honeysuckle and newly turned earth; she heard the scampering of a hare through underbrush and sweet birdsong in the whispering trees; she tasted heavy purple grapes and golden apples in the back of her throat.

And then, because she knew she could, because the Mother had come to her, she reached out with her mind and Shape-Moved.

“Open your eyes, Gwenhwyfar,” Madryn said softly.

She opened her eyes and looked at Madryn, a question on her face. Madryn stood and motioned for Gwen to stand. She took Gwen by the shoulders and gently turned her to face the golden room.

And she saw what she had done.

The heavy, golden eagle-shaped throne of the High King stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to the now-empty dais.

“I—” Gwen began.

“You did well. Now, Gwenhwyfar ur Rhoram, Princess of Prydyn, put it back.” Madryn said this last as though it would be easy.

And perhaps, Gwen thought, it truly was.

This time she did not close her eyes. She delicately touched her bracelet. The oak felt warm beneath her palm. She breathed in the scent of a spring morning, and concentrated. The golden throne rose in the air and steadily traveled above the jeweled steps, coming to rest gently back on the dais.

“You see?” Madryn asked quietly. “You see now?”

“Yes,” Gwen breathed. “Oh, yes. I do see now.”

Before Madryn could continue, a melodious voice, which seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, sounded throughout the glowing hall.

“There is,” Bloudewedd’s disembodied voice said, “someone at the Door.”

Cadair Idris, Gwytheryn &
Cil, Kingdom of Prydyn, Kymru
Bedwen Mis, 500

Meiriwydd, Disglair Wythnos—early evening

I
t took her most of the next day to slip away from Eiodel unnoticed.

She had not expected it to take so long, not with Havgan away at Caer Duir. But, somehow, things had continued to get in the way. Situations that demanded her attention had continued to crop up all day, almost as though she was being subtly prevented from leaving the fortress. If that were so, she had certainly underestimated Sigerric. She had thought he would leave her a clear path to do what she had come to Kymru to do, but now she knew he had his own kind of honor she must contend with.

Within those confines—he would neither wholly prevent her nor help her, he would neither wholly desert Havgan nor support him—she could and would work toward her goal. She did not understand Sigerric and knew she did not. She had thought he would help her to free herself from her hated marriage. She had thought him completely disgusted with her husband. But Sigerric was more complex than she had imagined. Men, she had found, were usually relatively simple to understand. There were only two she had met that were not—her husband and his dearest friend.

She dismounted her horse in the gathering twilight. The Doors glowed softly, lighting the now-mended stairs. It was odd how the stairs, once broken and faded, had, one morning after Arthur and the rest of the Kymri returned to Cadair Idris, been made whole and shining. The Coranians in Eiodel had seen no one come out of the mountain, but the stairs had been repaired just the same. Arianrod had said it was the work of Druids, who could Shape-Move, and Havgan had held tightly to his rage while she had said it.

The Doors shimmered as she approached them. She repeated to herself what she had learned. There was dark onyx and bloodstone for Annwyn Lord of Chaos and his mate, Aertan the Weaver. There were emeralds for Modron the Mother and sapphires for her mate, Taran of the Winds. There were opals for Mabon of the Sun and pearls for his mate, Nantsovelta of the Waters. There were rubies for the Warriors Twins, Camulos and Agrona. There were diamonds for Sirona of the Stars and garnets for Grannos the Healer. There were amethysts for Cerridwen and topaz for Cerrunnos, leaders of the Wild Hunt, Protectors of Kymru.

As she came to a stop before the doors the symbol for Arderydd, the High Eagle, formed of all the jewels, blazed abruptly and from somewhere far away she heard the faint sound of hunting horns. She shivered briefly, then raised her hand to knock. But before she could, a voice, which seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere, spoke softly.

Her heart was in her throat as she almost stepped back and fled.

“What do you do here, Aelfwyn of Corania?” the voice asked.

“You know my name?”

“I know your name. I know you.”

“How could you?”

“How could I not? Why wouldn’t one false wife know another?”

“I—I have heard of your tale. And it is not the same as mine.”

“Yes,” the voice said dryly. “We all think our own tales are different. But I can assure you, Princess of the House of Aelle, by virtue of my greater experience in this world, that we are not different from each other. Not at all.”

“I have been told that your dead husband, Lleu Silver-Hand, was a good man. But mine is not. I do not think to betray him because I have fallen in love with another.”

“No. I betrayed my husband because I loved another. You betray yours for plain hate. Does that make you better, Princess?”

Aelfwyn swallowed. “I did not come here to be judged by you.”

“Think of it,” the voice said softly, “as a bonus.”

Aelfwyn, determined to go on, ignored the barbed comment. “I came here to speak to the High King.”

“You may not enter.”

“I tell you, I must speak to him.”

“You may not enter,” the voice of the Doors went on, implacable, emotionless.

“Then send him out here to me!”

“I do not send the High King. The High King goes where he will.”

“I have news of a plot! A plot to capture the Dreamer!”

The voice fell silent. A rare evening breeze ruffled the grasses of the plain. The full moon was beginning to ride the sky, and its silvery beams flooded over the shining steps, bathing the glowing door, turning Aelfwyn’s white gown into glowing silver, as though she were sheathed in steel.

“You may not enter here,” the Doors repeated at last. “You fool!” Aelfwyn raged. “You would throw away this chance to save the Dreamer for—”

“For what, Princess?” a voice challenged from behind her. She whirled around to confront the owner of that voice. A man stood at the top of the steps. Around his neck gleamed a sapphire set within a triangle of silver. He was tall and lean, and his brown hair was streaked with gray. Even in the uncertain moonlight and the softly glowing golden light of the doors she could tell that his eyes were green.

“Who are you?” she demanded, and she held her head high to hide her surprise.

His expressive mouth quirked and his green eyes danced. He bowed briefly, then replied.

“I see,” she said dryly. “Well, that answers that.” “My dear, it is as much an answer as you deserve. But I will tell you my name in spite of that, for all my life I have had a weakness for beautiful women.”

She almost smiled, for she felt the effects of his charm in spite of herself.

“I am Dudod ap Cyvarnion var Hunydd. And your husband had my brother, Anieron, killed,” the man said softly. But for all its softness the last sentence was said with a tone of such underlying rage and grief, that Aelfwyn was almost afraid.

“I am sorry for your loss,” she said formally, not knowing what else to say. “And if you wish revenge on him, you will listen to what I have to say.”

“You have news of a plot, the Doors tell us. A plot to capture the Dreamer.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly. “And I have been told that the Bards of Kymru can put words to wings. If that is so, you may yet save him.”

“Tell me of this plot,” Dudod said crisply. “And of your price.”

“I have no price.”

Dudod’s expressive brows quirked. “I find that very hard to believe.”

“Then I will rephrase. My price is simply that you use this information to keep the Dreamer free. For there is very little else that my husband desires beyond the capture of his false blood brother. And what my husband desires, he shall not have. That, if it can be said to be a price, is mine.”

Dudod took a step nearer to her. He looked down on her upturned face and said softly, “It is a pity that the Golden Man would waste the Star of Heaven. For she, diamond hard and diamond bright, might have been warmed at a gentler fire.”

For some reason she could not fathom his words brought tears to her eyes. Humiliated and angered by his sympathy, she spoke harshly. “That is none of your affair.”

“You are right, Princess,” he said quietly. “Very right. So, then, we will move on to other things that are my affair. Tell me of this plot. And when it comes to fruition.”

“Unless I am very much mistaken, it comes to fruition tonight.”

Dudod, his eyes wide, reached out to her, grabbing her by the arms. “Tell me then,” he said swiftly. “Tell me, and I will give my words wings!”

“I wish to speak to the High King. I will tell no other!”

“You will tell me, Aelfwyn of Corania,” Dudod said evenly, gripping her shoulders tightly. “And if you do I will let you leave here unharmed.”

“The High King—”

“Is not available to you. But rest assured, he will know of this as though you spoke to him yourself.”

She hesitated. Though Dudod had not said, she thought it likely that Arthur was not in Cadair Idris. And so she told him of the trap Arianrod had made for the Dreamer.

Dudod released her then and she stumbled back. “Go,” the Bard said in a terrible voice. “Go, for you have done what you came to do.”

Then Dudod lifted his face to the sky, and flung back his arms. And though Aelfwyn could not hear his cry with her ears, she knew some message sprang desperately from Dudod’s mind, speeding across the sky to the distant south.

She only hoped it would be in time.

G
WYDION RODE NEXT
to Cariadas at the rear of the party as they neared Cil. The gathering dusk shrouded the small group as they lead their horses through the thickening trees toward a small stream where they could camp for the night.

The group that had left Caer Siddi with the Master Smiths in tow was dwindling. After returning to the mainland King Rhoram and Achren had equipped the lone Coranian guard for the journey to Eiodel. The man had looked as though he did not relish the task of carrying Arthur’s message. But carry it he would. Rhoram and his teulu had then split off and gone west, heading for the new headquarters set up in Penfro. It would be from Penfro that Rhoram—along with the help of Arthur and the Y Dawnus—would make his bid for the freedom of Prydyn.

Indeed, the Cerddorian throughout Kymru were on the move to gather near the Coranian-held capitals. Prince Lludd in Ederynion was moving toward his new headquarters in Ial. And King Owein and his folk would soon be moving north, to the commote of Maenor Deilo, to be closer to Llwynarth. Queen Morrigan and her people had already moved to Cemais when their hiding place in Mynydd Tawel was compromised. Soon they would move back northeast, to Coed Dulas, to await the signal to take back Tegeingl.

And then let Havgan face the Cerddorian of Kymru, the warriors who had waited for the past years to avenge the deaths of their friends and families and rulers. Then let the Warleader of Corania reap what he had sown.

The Golden Man would have to stand and fight with what he had, for there would be no reinforcements to help him. Havgan’s ships had been burnt and the shores of Kymru were watched to ensure that no help from Corania could arrive in time. With Havgan dead the Coranians would no longer be a threat, for it had been the force of Havgan’s personality, the force of Havgan’s schemes, the force of Havgan’s terrible, terrible need that had bound Corania to this venture.

The next step in this deadly game would be to free Queen Elen in Ederynion and Queen Enid in Rheged, for Arthur would not leave these two as hostages in the hands of the Coranians when the war began again in earnest. Even now Ceindrech, Aergol’s lover and the mother of his son, was on her way to Ederynion to meet up with Prince Lludd. And King Owein, along with the Druid, Yrth, and a few of his trusted people would soon be on their way to Llwynarth to take Queen Enid back from the enemy.

In Gwynedd, Myrrdin and Rhodri were awaiting their chance to rid Kymru of Rhodri’s son, the traitorous King Madoc. And then it would be time to deal with Cathbad, the Archdruid, who would dare to use the ceremony of tarw-casgliad to ensure Havgan’s place as ruler of Kymru. For that alone Modron the Mother would surely fry her Archdruid to a crisp. Gwydion was only surprised that she had not done so before this.

Yes, the Kymri were on the move, and plans were reaching fruition. By Calan Llachar, less than three months from now, the gamble would be lost or won. They would either all be dead, or be free.

They reached the stream as twilight surrounded them, and Gwydion and his six companions let their horses dip their heads and drink their fill. There were only six left now of the original group that had rescued the Master Smiths from bondage, for yesterday Arthur had split their party even further. He had sent the Druids—Aergol, Aldwr, Menw, and Sabrina—ahead to Cadair Idris with the Master Smiths and their families, giving them orders to make their way to the mountain by circling northwest around Llyn Mwyngil. He gave Aergol the leadership of that party, telling him to split the groups even smaller as he saw fit to ensure that they reached Cadair Idris. Arthur had said that it was best to have the Druids protect the Smiths, and perhaps he was right, for these Druids were experienced and capable. Yet Gwydion knew there were other reasons for Arthur to split the party.

He thought he understood why. For, besides Gwydion and Rhiannon, the High King had retained in his party the four young people that would, in the fullness of time, be the High King’s Great Ones—Cariadas as his Dreamer, Llywelyn as his Ardewin, Sinend as his Archdruid, and Cynfar as his Master Bard. During this trip Arthur had spoken to these four extensively, getting to know them better, storing in his mind and heart who they were, what they wanted, what—and who—they loved and hated. Gwydion watched him do it and silently applauded the young man. For he saw Arthur examine these four as one might examine a set of tools that one needed for a delicate, prolonged task.

And he saw something more—he saw the seeds of friendship and love sown between these five. And Gwydion would wonder what the years ahead might bring and know that, whatever they brought, his dreams of the future were nearing an end as Mabon of the Sun prepared to welcome another Dreamer.

And he was not sorry, for he was more than ready to hand over the dreams to his daughter. He had been Dreamer of Kymru for almost eighteen years and he had sacrificed a great deal to fulfill his task. Soon he would be able to turn to Rhiannon and beg her to give him the chance to show her how very, very much he loved her. When King Rhoram had been a part of their party Gwydion had watched the two of them and had, finally, discovered something—that he did not need to be jealous of the King of Prydyn. For Rhoram had his eye on another woman now, and Rhiannon knew it and did not care. It had become evident even to Gwydion that Rhoram was in love with the captain of his Cerddorian—and that the captain of his Cerddorian was far too wary to reciprocate. He did not doubt for one moment that Achren would lead Rhoram quite a dance. And that Rhiannon would be smiling all the while.