Read Online Chalice 2 - Dream Stone by Tara Janzen - Free Book Online
Authors: Tara Janzen
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scrying pool lifeless and murky and useless for her needs.
’Twould take more than warriors and a wild boy to unriddle
Riverwood’s malady.
In truth, ’twould take the Prydion Mage,
Ailfinn Mapp.
Another curse escaped her. She would have to
be on her guard with that one running loose in Merioneth.
Leaning forward, she immersed her hand in the
river and watched as the last of the black rot was washed into the
current and carried downstream. Change and turmoil were afoot in
the deep earth, a new chaos that she feared had been loosed when
Ceridwen and Dain Lavrans had freed the pryf ; a chaos that
seeped upward into the light of day, bringing the rot and wildness.
Five months had passed since the emerald seal had been broken and
the gate of the pryf’s prison opened. Five months and still
the worms turned deep in the earth, the frenzy of the prifarym having abated not one whit. Five months of things
coming undone, and of Madron’s growing doubts as to the wisdom of
their deed.
Five months, and still Rhuddlan was a dragon
keeper with no dragons to keep, and with no priestess from the
ancient line of Merioneth to call them home. Rhiannon was dead.
Ceridwen had taken herself north with Lavrans.
Rhiannon’s son, Mychael, could do it—she
would swear by him—if he would but give himself over to Druid
teachings.
The corruption thinned out into gelatinous
strings before slipping over the last of the river rock and
disappearing beneath the giant’s cairn, returning from whence it
had come. Mychael ab Arawn had been there, traveling the caverns
and the deep dark alone for months before the battle for Balor, a
feat no Quicken-tree could match. He’d seen fissuring in the damson
shafts—dread augery—and met the old worm. He’d been in the
wormholes and discovered the secret of dreamstone. And he’d
survived, proving himself to be far more than she’d thought.
She knew the legends of this place above the
Irish Sea, the stories born there and the stories brought from
Eire. Mychael, named for the archangel of the Christian God,
Rhiannon’s unforetold son who had come into the world by sharing
the womb with his sister. He should not be, except for some strange
grace of fate and the magic arts of a woman long lost in time.
Ailfinn would know the truth of it. One look would reveal the boy’s
forbidden origins to the mage.
Rhiannon must have been mad, or too far under
the Christian yoke of her faithless husband, to have let a son be
born from her womb. ’Twas what came from allowing love to make a
match. With one set of ill-fated vows, Carn Merioneth had lost its
firm hold on the past and been laid bare before the temporal world,
a world that had destroyed what time had held inviolate.
Nay, Madron thought, Mychael ab Arawn should
not be, but he was, and she would not lose him, not to Rhuddlan,
not to Ailfinn Mapp, and not to the wildness reaching up for him
from the depths of the earth. Without him she could not open the
doors between the worlds and look beyond her time. Without him she
could not take her father’s place and be a watcher of the
gates.
Chapter 3
M ychael returned to
Carn Merioneth well after dark, flashing his dreamstone blade to
make himself known to the guard at the postern gate. No other light
shone the same clear blue. ’Twas as different from lantern flame or
torchlight as crystal was from fire, and impossible for the Welsh,
or the English, or any man to duplicate.
He had spent the rest of the day in Riverwood
with Owain, a Welshman who had fought with the Quicken-tree and who
had not left for Gwynedd after the battle for Balor, choosing
instead to stay in Merioneth. They had found a trail of wolves and
men running together in the northern woods and followed it as far
as the Bredd, where the hunters had crossed the water. ’Twasn’t the
first time the strange mix of tracks had been found. Rhuddlan had
long since doubled the scouts in Riverwood.
Owain had headed back to the keep
’Twould take more than warriors and a wild boy to unriddle
Riverwood’s malady.
In truth, ’twould take the Prydion Mage,
Ailfinn Mapp.
Another curse escaped her. She would have to
be on her guard with that one running loose in Merioneth.
Leaning forward, she immersed her hand in the
river and watched as the last of the black rot was washed into the
current and carried downstream. Change and turmoil were afoot in
the deep earth, a new chaos that she feared had been loosed when
Ceridwen and Dain Lavrans had freed the pryf ; a chaos that
seeped upward into the light of day, bringing the rot and wildness.
Five months had passed since the emerald seal had been broken and
the gate of the pryf’s prison opened. Five months and still
the worms turned deep in the earth, the frenzy of the prifarym having abated not one whit. Five months of things
coming undone, and of Madron’s growing doubts as to the wisdom of
their deed.
Five months, and still Rhuddlan was a dragon
keeper with no dragons to keep, and with no priestess from the
ancient line of Merioneth to call them home. Rhiannon was dead.
Ceridwen had taken herself north with Lavrans.
Rhiannon’s son, Mychael, could do it—she
would swear by him—if he would but give himself over to Druid
teachings.
The corruption thinned out into gelatinous
strings before slipping over the last of the river rock and
disappearing beneath the giant’s cairn, returning from whence it
had come. Mychael ab Arawn had been there, traveling the caverns
and the deep dark alone for months before the battle for Balor, a
feat no Quicken-tree could match. He’d seen fissuring in the damson
shafts—dread augery—and met the old worm. He’d been in the
wormholes and discovered the secret of dreamstone. And he’d
survived, proving himself to be far more than she’d thought.
She knew the legends of this place above the
Irish Sea, the stories born there and the stories brought from
Eire. Mychael, named for the archangel of the Christian God,
Rhiannon’s unforetold son who had come into the world by sharing
the womb with his sister. He should not be, except for some strange
grace of fate and the magic arts of a woman long lost in time.
Ailfinn would know the truth of it. One look would reveal the boy’s
forbidden origins to the mage.
Rhiannon must have been mad, or too far under
the Christian yoke of her faithless husband, to have let a son be
born from her womb. ’Twas what came from allowing love to make a
match. With one set of ill-fated vows, Carn Merioneth had lost its
firm hold on the past and been laid bare before the temporal world,
a world that had destroyed what time had held inviolate.
Nay, Madron thought, Mychael ab Arawn should
not be, but he was, and she would not lose him, not to Rhuddlan,
not to Ailfinn Mapp, and not to the wildness reaching up for him
from the depths of the earth. Without him she could not open the
doors between the worlds and look beyond her time. Without him she
could not take her father’s place and be a watcher of the
gates.
Chapter 3
M ychael returned to
Carn Merioneth well after dark, flashing his dreamstone blade to
make himself known to the guard at the postern gate. No other light
shone the same clear blue. ’Twas as different from lantern flame or
torchlight as crystal was from fire, and impossible for the Welsh,
or the English, or any man to duplicate.
He had spent the rest of the day in Riverwood
with Owain, a Welshman who had fought with the Quicken-tree and who
had not left for Gwynedd after the battle for Balor, choosing
instead to stay in Merioneth. They had found a trail of wolves and
men running together in the northern woods and followed it as far
as the Bredd, where the hunters had crossed the water. ’Twasn’t the
first time the strange mix of tracks had been found. Rhuddlan had
long since doubled the scouts in Riverwood.
Owain had headed back to the keep
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