A Quest-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic Page 3

  Perhaps that invited courtly words. He murmured some such. He found the courage to take Madog's daughter in his arms and kiss her, and thereafter—

  He waked abed with the faint dawn coming through the window, his sword tangled with his leg and his arm ensnared in a woman's unbound hair—

  Hair raven black.

  He leaped up trailing sheets, while a strange young woman sat up to snatch the bedclothes to her, with her black hair flowing about her shoulders, her eyes dark and cold and fathomless.

  “Where's my wife?” he cried.

  She smiled, thin-lipped, rose from the bed, drawing the sheets about her like royal robes. “Why, you see her, husband.”

  He rushed to the door and lifted the latch. The door did not budge, hardly rattled when he shoved it with all his strength. “Owain?” he cried, and pounded it with his fist. “Owain!”

  No answer came. Gwydion turned slowly to face the woman, dreading what other shape she might take. But she sat down wrapped in the sheets with one knee on the rumpled bed, looking at him. Her hair spread about her like a web of shadows in the dawn. As much as Eri had been an innocent girl, this was a woman far past Eri's innocence or his own.

  He asked, “Where's Owain? What's become of him?”

  “Guesting elsewhere.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Glasog,” she said, and shrugged, the dawn wind carrying long strands of her hair about her shoulders. “Or Eri, if you like. My father's elder daughter and younger, all in one, since he has none but me.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Why this pretense if you were the bargain?”

  “People trust Eri. She's so fair, so kind.”

  “What do you want? What does your father want?”

  “A claim on your father's land. The last kingdom of Dyfed. And you've come to give it to us.”

  Gwydion remembered nothing of what might have happened last night. He remembered nothing of anything he should have heard or done last night, abed with Glasog the witch, Madog's raven-haired daughter. He felt cold and hollow and desperate, asking, “On your oath, is Owain safe?”

  “And would you believe my oath?” Glasog asked.

  “I'll see your father,” Gwydion said shortly. “Trickery or not, he swore me the third of his kingdom for your dowry. Younger or elder, or both, you're my wife. Will he break his word?”

  Glasog said, “An heir. Then he'll release you and your friend, and your father will reign in peace … so long as he lives.”

  Gwydion walked to the open window, gazing at a paling, still sunless sky. He feared he knew what that release would be—the release of himself and Owain from life, while the child he sired would become heir to his father's kingdom with Madog to enforce that right.

  So long as his father lived … so long as that unfortunate child might live, for that matter, once the inheritance of Ogan's line and Ogan's luck passed securely into Madog's line—his father's kingdom taken and for no battle, no war, only a paltry handful of lies and lives.

  He looked across the scorched hills, toward a home he could not reach, a father who could not advise him. He dared not hope that Owain might have escaped to bring word to his father: I'll not leave this door, Owain had said—and they would have had to carry Owain away by force or sorcery. Mili with him.

  It was sorcery that must have made him sleep and forget last night. It was sorcery he must have seen when he turned from the window and saw Eri sitting there, rosy-pale and golden, patting the place beside her and bidding him come back to bed.

  He shuddered and turned and hit the window ledge, hurting his hand. He thought of flight, even of drawing the sword and killing Madog's daughter, before this princess could conceive and doom him and his parents….

  Glasog's voice said, slowly, from Eri's lips, “If you try anything so rash, my father won't need your friend any longer, will he? I certainly wouldn't be in his place then. I'd hardly be in it now.”

  “What have you done with Owain?”

  Eri shrugged. Glasog's voice said, “Dear husband—”

  “The marriage wasn't consummated,” he said, “for all I remember.”

  It was Glasog who lifted a shoulder. Black hair parted. “To sorcery—does it matter?”

  He looked desperately toward the window. He said, without looking at her: “I've something to say about that, don't you think?”

  “No. You don't. If you wouldn't, or couldn't, the words are said, the vows are made, the oaths are taken. If not your child—anyone's will do, for all men know or care.”

  He looked at her to see if he had understood what he thought he had, and Glasog gathered a thick skein of her hair—and drew it over her shoulder.

  “The oaths are made,” Glasog said. “Any lie will do. Any child will do.”

  “There's my word against it,” Gwydion said.

  Glasog shook her head gravely. “A lie's nothing to my father. A life is nothing.” She stood up, shook out her hair, and hugged the sheets about her. Dawn lent a sudden and unkind light to Glasog's face, showing hollow cheeks, a grim mouth, a dark and sullen eye that promised nothing of compromise.

  Why? he asked himself. Why this much of truth? Why not Eri's face?

  She said, “What will you, husband?”

  “Ask tonight,” he said, hoping only for time and better counsel.

  She inclined her head, walked between him and the window, lifting her arms wide. For an instant the morning sun showed a woman's body against the sheets. Then—it might have been a trick of the eyes—black hair spread into the black wings, something flew to the window and the sheet drifted to the floor.

  What about the dragon? he would have asked, but there was no one to ask.

  He went to the door and tried it again, in case sorcery had ceased. But it gave not at all, not to cleverness, not to force. He only bruised his shoulder, and leaned dejectedly against the door, sure now that he had made a terrible mistake.

  The window offered nothing but a sheer drop to the stones below, and when he tried that way, he could not force his shoulders through. There was no fire in the room, not so much as water to drink. He might fall on his sword, but he took Glasog at her word: it was the form of the marriage Madog had wanted, and they would only hide his death until it was convenient to reveal it. All the house had seen them wed and bedded, even Owain—who, being honest, could swear only what he had seen and what he had guessed—but never, never to the truth of what had happened and not happened last night.

  Ogan's fabled luck should have served him better, he thought, casting himself onto the bedside, head in hands. It should have served all of them better, this luck his great-grandfather had said only faithlessness could break—

  But was Glasog herself not faithlessness incarnate? Was not Madog?

  If that was the barb in great-grandfather's blessing—it had done nothing but bring him and his family into Madog's hands. But it seemed to him that the fay were reputed for twists and turns in their gifts, and if they had made one such twist they might make another: all he knew was to hew to the course Ogan's sons had always followed.

  So he had come here in good faith, been caught through abuse of that faith, and though he might perhaps seize the chance to come at Madog himself, that was treachery for treachery and if he had any last whisper of belief in his luck, that was what he most should not do.

  “Is there a child?” Madog asked, and Glasog said, “Not yet. Not yet. Be patient.”

  “There's not,” Madog said testily, “forever. Remember that.”

  “I remember,” Glasog said.

  “You wouldn't grow fond of him—or foolish?”

  “I?” quoth Glasog, with an arch of her brow. “I, fond? Not fond of the dragon, let us say. Not fond of poverty—or early dying.”

  “We'll not fail. If not him—”

  “Truly, do you imagine the dragon will give you anything if the claim's not legitimate? I think not. I do think not. It must be Gwydion's child—and that, by nature, by Gwydion's o
wn will. That is the difficulty, isn't it?”

  “You vaunt your sorcery. Use it!”

  Glasog said, coldly, “When needs be. If needs be. But it's myself he'll have, not Eri, and for myself, not Eri. That's my demand in this.”

  “Don't be a fool.”

  Glasog smiled with equal coldness. “This man has magical protections. His luck is no illusion and it's not to cross. I don't forget that. Don't you. Trust me, Father.”

  “I wonder how I got you.”

  Glasog still smiled. “Luck,” she said. “You want to be rid of the dragon, don't you? Has my advice ever failed you? And isn't it the old god's bond that he'll barter for questions?”

  Her father scowled. “It's my life you're bartering for, curse your cold heart. It's my life you're risking with your schemes—a life from each kingdom of Dyfed, that's the barter we've made. We've caught Gwydion. We can't stave the dragon off forever for your whims and your vapors, Daughter. Get me a grandson—by whatever sorcery—and forget this foolishness. Kill the dragon … do you think I've not tried that? All the princes in Dyfed have tried that.”

  Glasog said, with her grimmest look: “We've also Gwydion's friend, don't we? And isn't he of Ogan's kingdom?”

  Gwydion endured the hours until sunset, hungry and thirsty and having nothing whatever to do but to stare out the slit of a window, over a black and desolate land.

  He wondered if Owain was even alive, or what had become of Mili.

  Once he saw a raven in flight, toward the south; and once, late, the sky growing dimly copper, he saw it return, it seemed more slowly, circling always to the right.

  Glasog? he wondered—or merely a raven looking for its supper?

  The sky went from copper to dusk. He felt the air grow chill. He thought of closing the shutters, but that was Glasog's access. So he paced the floor, or looked out the window or simply listened to the distant comings and goings below which alone told him that there was life in the place.

  Perhaps, he thought, they only meant him to die of thirst and hunger, and perhaps he would never see or speak to a living soul again. He hoped Glasog would come by sunset, but she failed that; and by moonrise, but she did not come.

  At last, when he had fallen asleep in his waiting, a shadow swept in the window with a snap and flutter of dark wings, and Glasog stood wrapped only in dark hair and limned in starlight.

  He gathered himself up quickly, feeling still that he might be dreaming. “I expected you earlier,” he said.

  “I had inquiries to make,” she said, and walked to the table where—he did not know how, a cup and a silver pitcher gleamed in reflected starlight. She lifted the pitcher and poured, and oh, he was thirsty. She offered it, and it might be poisoned for all he knew. At the very least it was enchanted, and perhaps only moon-dust and dreams. But she stood offering it; he drank, and it took both thirst and hunger away.

  She said, “You may have one wish of me, Gwydion. One wish. And then I may have two from you. Do you agree?”

  He wondered what to say. He put down the cup and walked away to the window, looking out on the night sky. There were a hundred things to ask: his parents' lives; Owain's; the safety of his land—and in each one there seemed some flaw.

  Finally he chose the simplest. “Love me,” he said.

  For a long time Glasog said nothing. Then he heard her cross the room.

  He turned. Her eyes flashed at him, sudden as a serpent's. She said, “Dare you? First drink from my cup.”

  “Is this your first wish?”

  “It is.”

  He hesitated, looking at her, then walked away to the table and reached for the shadowy cup, but another appeared beside it, gleaming, crusted with jewels.

  “Which will you have?” she asked.

  He hoped then that he understood her question. And he picked up the cup of plain pewter and drank it all.

  She said, from behind him, “You have your wish, Gwydion.”

  And wings brushed his face, the wind stirred his hair, the raven shape swooped out the window.

  “Owain,” a voice said—the raven's voice, and Owain leaped up from his prison bed, such as he could, though his head was spinning and he had to brace himself against the wall. It was not the raven's first visit. He asked it, “Where's my master? What's happened to him?”

  And the raven, suddenly no raven, but a dark-haired woman: “Wedlock,” she said. “Death, if the dragon gets his due—as soon he may.”

  “Glasog,” Owain said, chilled to the marrow. Since Madog's men had hauled him away from Gwydion's door he had had this dizziness, and it came on him now. He felt his knees going and he caught himself.

  “You might save him,” Glasog said.

  “And should I trust you?” he asked.

  The chains fell away from him with a ringing of iron, and the bolts fell from the door.

  “Because I'm his wife,” she said. Eri stood there. He rubbed his eyes and it was Glasog again. “And you're his friend. Isn't that what it means, friendship? Or marriage?”

  A second time he rubbed his eyes. The door swung open.

  “My father says,” Glasog said, “the dragon's death will free Prince Gwydion. You may have your horse, your dog, your armor and your weapons—or whatever you will, Owain ap Llodri. But for that gift—you must give me one wish when I claim it.”

  In time—Gwydion was gazing out the window, he had no idea why, he heard the slow echo of hoofbeats off the wall.

  He saw Owain ride out the gate; he saw the raven flying over him.

  “Owain,” he cried. “Owain!”

  But Owain paid no heed. Only Mili stopped, and looked up at the tower where he stood.

  He thought—Go with him, Mili, if it's home he's bound for. Warn my father. There's no hope here.

  Owain never looked back. Gwydion saw him turn south at the gate, entirely away from home, and guessed where Owain was going.

  “Come back,” he cried. “Owain! No!”

  It was the dragon they were going to. It was surely the dragon Owain was going to, and if Gwydion had despaired in his life, it was seeing Owain and Mili go off in company with his wife.

  He tried again to force himself through the window slit. He tried the door, working with his sword to lift the bar he was sure was in place outside.

  He found it and lifted it. But it stopped with the rattle of chain.

  They found the brook again, beyond the hill, and the raven fluttered down clumsily to drink, spreading a wing to steady herself.

  Owain reined Swallow in. He had no reason to trust the raven in any shape, less reason to believe it than anything else that he had seen in this place. But Mili came cautiously up to it, and suddenly it was Glasog kneeling there, wrapped only in her hair, with her back to him, and Mili whining at her in some distress.

  Owain got down. He saw two fingers missing from Glasog's right hand, the wounds scarcely healed. She drank from her other hand, and bathed the wounded one in water. She looked at Owain and said, “You wished to save Gwydion. You said nothing of yourself.”

  Owain shrugged and settled with his arm around Mili's neck.

  “Now you owe me my wish,” Glasog said.

  “That I do,” he said, and feared what it might be.

  She said, “There's a god near this place. The dragon overcame him. But he will still answer the right question. Most gods will, with proper sacrifice.”

  Owain said, “What shall I ask him?”

  She said, “I've already asked.”

  Owain asked then, “And the answers, lady?”

  “First that the dragon's life and soul lies in his right eye. And second that no man can kill him.”

  Owain understood the answer then. He scratched Mili's neck beneath the collar. He said, “Mili's a loyal dog. And if flying tires you, lady, I've got a shoulder you can ride on.”

  Glasog said, “Better you go straightaway back to your king. Only lend me your bow, your dog, and your horse. That is my wish, ap Llodri.”
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  Owain shook his head, and got up, patting Mili on the head. “All that you'll have by your wish,” Owain said, “but I go with them.”

  “Be warned,” she said.

  “I am that,” said Owain, and held out his hand. “My lady?”

  The raven fluttered up and settled on his arm, bating as he rose into the saddle. Owain set Swallow on her way, among the charred, cinder-black hills, to a cave the raven showed him.

  Swallow had no liking for this place. Owain patted her neck, coaxed her forward. Mili bristled up and growled as they climbed. Owain took up his bow and drew out an arrow, yelled, “Mili! Look out!” as fire billowed out and Swallow shied.

  A second gust followed. Mili yelped and ran from the roiling smoke, racing ahead of a great serpent shape that surged out of the cave; but Mili began to cross the hill then, leading it.

  The raven launched itself from Owain's shoulder, straighter than Owain's arrow sped.

  A clamor rose in the keep, somewhere deep in the halls. It was dawn above the hills, and a glow still lit the south, as Gwydion watched from the window.

  He was watching when a strange rider came down the road, shining gold in the sun, in scaled armor.

  “The dragon!” he heard shouted from the wall. Gwydion's heart sank. It sank further when the scale-armored rider reached the gate and Madog's men opened to it. It was Swallow the dragon-knight rode, Swallow with her mane all singed; and it was Mili who limped after, with her coat all soot-blackened and with great sores showing on her hide. Mili's head hung and her tail drooped and the dragon led her by a rope, while a raven sat perched on his shoulder.

  Of Owain there was no sign.

  There came a clattering in the hall. Chain rattled, the bar lifted and thumped and armed men were in the doorway.

  “King Madog wants you,” one said. And Gwydion—

  “Madog will have to send twice,” Gwydion said, with his sword in hand.

  The dragon rode to the steps and the raven fluttered to the ground as waiting women rushed to it, to bring Princess Glasog her cloak—black as her hair and stitched with spells. The waiting women and the servants had seen this sight before—the same as the men at arms at the gate, who had had their orders should it have been Owain returning.