The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron

The aethereal was still.

  “It was not a straight contest of powers. In which I would have been bested instantly. And I think—if I may pre-empt Master Harmodius—that he dwells in the aethereal and that our ‘real’ is very difficult for him. But for the battle of will—will, with ops as a weapon, to use your university terms—I built this.”

  Memories can be very difficult in the aethereal —the memory palace lives only in the user’s mind, and the weakness of memory can make anything fluctuate. Living memory—actual events—can be subject to an infinite number of seductions and degradations, as every hermeticist knows—delusions of success or defeat, failures of will, troubles of image.

  But for most casters, memories of direct manipulations of hermetical power have themselves a glow of solid experience, and the Queen’s memory of the climaxes of Ash’s assault on her wall were vivid, complex, and so fraught with emotion that Mogon groaned and Gabriel found himself weeping.

  But when she was done, each of them built, under her instruction, one of the golden bricks—Mogon’s were a magnificent, lurid green.

  “I made no attempt to strike him. I wished only to protect my unborn child.” She smiled. “Now, I wonder what was Ash and what was Ghause.”

  Harmodius had seen the shadow of another in her memory. “And what was Tar,” he said.

  “The Virgin would only protect me,” the Queen said quickly.

  Harmodius frowned. “They only see us as slaves and soldiers,” he said. He looked pointedly at Gabriel.

  Gabriel shook his head. “Harmodius—I would not be your foe. But I need my ally in order to win this battle—the more especially if your dark dragon manifests.” He looked around. “I have no idea of what it would be like to fight a dragon. Militarily, I’m not even sure it can be done. Based on two observations of my own ally in his draconic form—” He paused. “I’m not sure I can plan for that.”

  Harmodius took a deep breath as if to make a passionate rejoinder. But he paused.

  “We must win this fight,” he said.

  “We know,” Desiderata said.

  “Very well,” Harmodius said. “I will limit myself to Ash.”

  Gabriel smiled at the Faery Knight. “You are content I should command?” he asked.

  “No,” the Faery Knight said. “I am content we can aid each other. Command is too imperious for me, Gabriel. Let us merely be friends, and the rest will follow.”

  “That’s me told, as my archer would say,” Gabriel said. He extended his hand. “I intend to fight in the woods, at Gilson’s Hole.”

  “In the woods?” Desiderata asked. Her surprise leached into the aethereal.

  “The army marches tonight, under cover of darkness,” Gabriel said. “Much of it, anyway. Not your knights. We’ve summoned a mass levy of farmers and peasants to dig, and cut trees. What we have that our opponents lack is organization. I’m trying to win with it.”

  The Faery Knight put a hand to his forehead in mock salute—or perhaps genuine. “I am shocked. Perhaps he will be surprised.”

  “Let’s find out,” the captain said.

  One by one, the others left the old man’s palace.

  Like a bad guest, Gabriel chose to stay. When they were all gone, he said, “Odd to be in your head, instead of you in mine.”

  Harmodius smiled. “Are we at odds?” he asked.

  “Please do nothing against Master Smythe,” Gabriel said.

  “You mean Lot? You have my word. For now.” Harmodius looked at something that Gabriel knew he couldn’t see—but he’d been in the old man’s rooms in his own mind, and he knew what was there—the mirror.

  “I’ve lost my protection,” he said.

  “You think so?” Harmodius said. “Hmm.”

  “How will this Ash manifest?” Gabriel asked. “And how will you strike?”

  “I think he will use death—each death is a major event in the aethereal,” the old magister began.

  “Really? I had no idea,” Gabriel said.

  “I missed your sarcasm,” Harmodius said.

  “And I, yours,” Gabriel shot back.

  They both glared—and both laughed.

  “I think he uses death to power his essence.” Harmodius shrugged. “I really know nothing—I guess everything. I will not tell you what I will do.”

  “And Amicia? Lissen Carak?” Gabriel asked. His pulse raced even in the aethereal.

  “Defended. Amicia wishes to come with the army. I think she should not—but we need every scrap of hermetical talent.” Harmodius set his jaw.

  Gabriel nodded. “In as much as I am captain—you are magister. I believe I can defeat Thorn’s material army. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say I can defeat him with minimal losses.”

  “You’ve learned a great deal of humility,” Harmodius said dryly. “But I will add this. If you die and I die, and Ash manifests, and Thorn triumphs, and Lissen Carak does not fall—then we have not wholly lost.”

  “I probably lost Ticondaga and all my folk by hubris,” Gabriel said. “I have learned in just a few years making war that to dwell on errors is to make more.” He shrugged. “I am afraid of a battle with so many imponderables. But I will do my best.”

  Harmodius nodded. “I will spare you the statement that you should not blame yourself.”

  Gabriel shrugged.

  “What happens if we win on the ground and lose here?” Gabriel asked.

  “We all die,” Harmodius said.

  “The converse is also true,” Gabriel said. “You would have me die, so that untold numbers of beings I have never met are protected from Ash holding a gate.” Gabriel shook his head. “I’m not that noble. Let’s just beat him here.” He managed a grin. “And live to tell about it.”

  Harmodius shook his head. “At best, our losses will be staggering.”

  Gabriel sighed. “I’ll try and prevent that.” But there was doubt in his voice.

  In the real, Gabriel was the last but Harmodius to return. He looked around, feeling—rested. He tried to empty his wine cup, but that had apparently already happened, and the fire was down and most of the candles out.

  Harmodius grunted. “I’m too old for all this,” he said. “Good night.”

  “Where are you sleeping?” Gabriel asked.

  “In this chair.” Harmodius stretched. “Which even this body isn’t young enough for.”

  “You can share my room,” Gabriel volunteered. “Come, old man. Three flights of stairs and there’s a feather bed.”

  “Lead on,” Harmodius said.

  They made it to the top with minimal grunting. Gabriel got the old man into his camp bed—the castle seemed to have no beds of its own, or perhaps other guests had them.

  Toby didn’t awake any of the times they stepped over him, and he looked exhausted. Gabriel let him sleep. He found the leather case where his wine was stored, and found both bottles empty.

  “Damn,” he said.

  Harmodius, the most puissant magister in all of the Nova Terra, was already snoring.

  Gabriel looked at him for a moment. The cased window was open and moonlight fell on the old man’s outthrust arm, and the night was chilly, and Gabriel got his red cloak off the clothes piled on his chair and spread it over the old man. It smelled of wood smoke. That sparked a few memories.

  He smiled again. Then he went out past his solar, where Nell was sleeping with a young man spooned against her. Gabriel nodded thoughtfully and took his page’s canteen and pulled the stopper. There was water in it. He drank it.

  It wasn’t what he wanted, and he went into the hall, his cup still in his hand.

  The Queen’s door opened, and Blanche backed through it with a taper in her hand.

  A variety of thoughts crossed Gabriel’s mind all at once, and when she turned, they both flinched.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, although he had no idea for what he was apologizing.

  She paused. “May I help you?” she asked. “The babe’s asleep and so is her grace.?
??

  Gabriel waved his cup. I’m the captain, damn it. I can be in the hall at midnight. There was something in her air that damned him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I was only looking for a cup of wine.”

  A loud snore ripped out of Harmodius’s throat and echoed down the stone steps.

  “He sounds as if he’s choking,” she said, and almost giggled.

  They were looking into each other’s eyes. It went on too long.

  “I’ll…” he began, cursing himself for ten types of a fool.

  “I have wine,” she said. Her voice was husky. “In my room.” Her eyes never left his.

  He reached out his hand.

  She took it. “I want to see your—griffon,” she whispered.

  He laughed. She had no idea why. But he took her to the door and produced a key made of wrought steel.

  “Will he scream?” she asked. Suddenly she was appalled—that she’d offered him wine, that she’d been so bold about the monster.

  He shook his head. “Perhaps when we leave. Let me go first.”

  He opened the door and she was shocked—immediately—to find that the room revealed, which had once been a fine solar, was now roofless to the open night, and a canopy of stars rose above her. There were two chairs, and a heavy iron chain, and a—a—

  A monster.

  Gabriel went forward, crooning, and it—It was huge. It seemed to fill the very large tower room, as big as the whole home she’d grown up in with her mother. It put its head on the ground.

  And rolled on its back like an enormous cat.

  “Come on,” Ser Gabriel said.

  She breathed out and moved forward. And then, almost without thinking, she went straight up to the great thing. She reached out a hand and touched it. “How big will he get?” she asked.

  “He’s only half grown, aren’t you, laddy?” Gabriel crooned. “He’ll be big enough to ride in a month or two.”

  It had feathers on its head and an enormous, vicious beak, downward and backward curved like a scimitar of horn, and wickedly sharp, and two great black eyes that seemed fathomless. The feathers of its wings marched in endless organic rows, green and black and white and gold—true gold, as if all the gilders in the world had united to work on its feathers. But just behind the mighty muscles of its wings there was a line where downy, almost misshapen feathers marched along with hair, and then, from that line back, it looked to have a coat more like that of a horse or cow—except for the barbaric talons.

  It should have seemed ungainly and ugly. Instead, it was—queerly beautiful, like a much-scarred tomcat or a favourite old shoe. She scratched the place on the great belly where the fur and the feathers met, and the great monster made a noise somewhere between a purr and a screech.

  “Oh, he likes you,” Ser Gabriel said.

  With the purr came some other emanation. Blanche had little experience of matters aethereal—none, really. So for the first time, she felt the tickle of something unseelie in her head.

  Ser Gabriel gave the beast a slap on the side of his beak. “None of that,” he said.

  Blanche suddenly felt a terrible, wonderful upwelling of love.

  Inside her head, Gabriel’s voice said, “Stop that.”

  Just for a moment she saw him, in a red doublet and hose, standing on a parquetry floor in some sort of cathedral, with statues and numbers all about him, and a beautiful woman on a pedestal behind him, dressed like the statues in churches.

  “I’ll do my own courting,” the voice in her head said. “Down, Ariosto!”

  The great creature raised his head and both her eyes met both of its eyes. Its impossibly rough tongue brushed her face. She laughed, although she trembled, and although she suddenly had the most intimate—erotic—picture of Ser Gabriel, and she blushed.

  She started to turn away and her shoulder met Gabriel’s.

  His lips came down on hers. She didn’t feel as if she was controlling her body, but she fit herself against him from her knee to her head. She had never done this with any boy. She felt wanton, deliciously so.

  The griffon watched them, unblinking. Gabriel took his lips away from hers and brushed them against her neck, and then his hand tightened and he pulled her—gently—towards the door.

  The great monster made a sound very like a sigh.

  Blanche turned back, and Gabriel, lightly but firmly, stiff-armed her out the door.

  He shut it firmly. Turned away from her, and locked it.

  “If you kiss me,” he said, his voice husky, “I’d rather it was of your own free will.” He turned back. “Ariosto is—A creature of the Wild.” He shrugged.

  Blanche realized that she was breathing very hard, that her skin was flushed, and her hands unsteady. She was all too aware that the Queen’s solar was the next door, that they were virtually in public.

  She turned to her own door, suddenly quite sure what she wanted.

  Utterly unsure how to express it.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said.

  Gabriel followed her, remaining just a step away.

  “Come,” she said simply. She couldn’t imagine a speech that would express her thoughts and feelings. So she went to her door, and opened it.

  They walked through the low, iron-bound oak door, and she shut it carefully. She put the small taper in her hand into a travelling stick on a low trunk. Time seemed to pass very slowly. Each of her movements seemed very precious. Graceful. Beautiful. She rose on her toes to fetch something.

  I should be asleep, he thought, along with a thousand other thoughts.

  She took the dented silver cup from his hand and poured him a cup of wine. She put something in her mouth.

  She looked up at him, and took a sip—more than a sip. Boldly. And then put it in his hands and closed her own around his. “If—” Her voice shook. “If you make a baby on me, swear you’ll rear it as one of your own.”

  “Blanche—”

  “Swear. Or take your wine and go.” She was shaking.

  “Blanche—”

  “Don’t cozen me!” she said.

  He took the wine, drank a fair amount without taking his eyes off her and frowned. He kissed her. It was effortless—they flowed together and were one, for so long that he almost spilled the rest of the wine.

  And then she placed her hand firmly on his breastbone. She was not weak.

  “Swear,” she said. “I won’t make you pretend you’ll marry me. Just that you won’t do what some noble bastard did to my mother.”

  Gabriel sat on the chest. His mind was going around and around, and half of it seemed to be chasing Amicia. And the other half was utterly captivated.

  “It is not that I won’t swear,” he said. “It’s that I don’t like what I see in the mirror if I do.”

  Blanche’s breath caught. “I know you’ll marry the Queen,” she said suddenly. “I know what I am, and what you are.”

  Gabriel didn’t catch himself. He laughed.

  “No,” he said. “I can imagine many outcomes, but those pips are not on the dice.” He smiled at her. “And I’m at least as much a bastard as you.”

  She leaned back, as if to look at him more closely. “Really?”

  He got up. He was overcome with her—the palpable reality of her, her smell, her unwashed hair and the taste of her mouth and the clove she’d just chewed and what that said.

  “State secret,” he whispered.

  She licked her lips. “I know who your parents are,” she said.

  He froze. She felt the tension in his muscles, and he took a step for the door, but it was as if he was in the aethereal. He meant to step to the door, but instead he was holding her. Her warmth went through his hands. Without a conscious thought, he pulled the veil off her hair and put a hand behind her head. Her kirtle opened at the side, and fit like a glove, but he managed to find the skin where her shoulder met her neck.

  “Swear, damn you!” she said. She pushed him hard enough that he fell back across
the chest. “Or leave,” she said.

  “That hurt,” he said, and meant it. “I swear on my sword that any baby we make will be reared as my own.” He caught his breath. “I’m only promising so that you won’t hurt me again.”

  She laughed.

  The taper gave up—a last flare of light that showed her laughing at his discomfiture, and then darkness. The moon was on the other side of the tower, and her window was closed and shuttered. There was some rustling.

  “I feel I should tell you—” he said to the darkness.

  “Stop talking,” she said, very close.

  Her lips found his.

  After a pause, she said, “It’s side opening, I’ve already unlaced it.”

  His hand finally found bare skin…

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gilson’s Hole—Sauce

  The first wave of boglins hit their new defences just after first light. It wasn’t really an attack or even a probe—the boglins had a hard time with the marsh and the ditch at the base of the ridge was worse, already filled with swamp water. They milled about and threw sling stones—a new trick—and made skittering noises.

  Then they began to move off into the newly forested land west of the Hole.

  By then, the camp—well back from the barriers, between the old village and the old fort—was awake.

  Sauce took a pair of lances to the top of the first wall of earth and Mag came up behind her.

  Without any drama, she pointed a finger at the ground to the north and there was a flare of heat—the sort of shimmer that warm rock can give on a hot summer day.

  Mag smiled. “I have sewing to finish,” she said. She went back to camp.

  Young Phillip—one of her Morean knights—looked a little pale.

  Sauce made a face. “I used to think Tom was the scariest of the bunch,” she said.

  She walked off to look at her pickets.

  She had to walk a long way. Given two full days and some farm labour, Ser John had managed a small miracle of construction. The low ridge—not so low in places, either—that hemmed in the Hole on the south and west was now crowned with a long, winding earthworks well-reinforced with lumber, and in front of it the trees were cleared to stumps for almost a hundred paces—right down to the marsh—and then piled beyond in a tangle of spruce and maple.