The Keys to the Realms (The Dream Stewards) Read online

  SIXTEEN

  Despite the anger that dug deeper into his gut every time he thought of Clydog’s revolt, Hywel was pleased. All of his senses came alive in the White Woods. The dark mystery of this forest intrigued him. Not that he was ignorant or careless of the danger—he had faced and defeated unthinkable horrors on his many travels through the enchanted woods. But that was exactly why he appreciated this place—its hidden dangers challenged him in unusual ways.

  This was but the first of a three-day ride through the forest from Fane Gramarye to the old trade road where, according to Alwen’s information, they should intersect the caravan escorting Ffion and the sorceress called Branwen. So far the journey had been quiet. They had encountered nothing more than a few distant sightings of the gwyllgi—spectral hellhounds who preyed on lone travelers—but Hywel knew from experience to expect more from the White Woods.

  Hywel always took point, partly because he believed a real leader led and partly because he couldn’t stand to follow, not ever. His captains had long ago given up arguing and dedicated their efforts to better watching his back. Twelve men from his personal guard accompanied him on this mission, each of them chosen for a particular expertise, all of them seasoned and loyal, and none of them strangers to this forest. Some had fought for his father and taught Hywel the ways of a true warrior. And some were comrades who had earned his trust in other ways.

  Of the fifteen riders that made up the party, only one had not been Hywel’s choice. Though he liked the Cad Nawdd swordsman Alwen had assigned to watch over Cerrigwen, Odwain was a brooding sort, and Hywel thought him too serious for his own good.

  Hywel pulled back on the reins until his mount fell in step alongside the soldier, who rode behind the sorceress. Thinking Odwain might make a better companion if he relaxed a bit, Hywel struck up a casual conversation. “When I was a boy, my father would take me deep into this forest and leave me to find my way back on my own.”

  Odwain slipped an incredulous squint sideways, unwilling to take his gaze too long from the woman, or the road ahead of him. “To what end?”

  “He meant for me to learn self-reliance—and fearlessness, I suppose. The first time I was lost a full night and day before he came looking for me.” Hywel grinned. “I was soaked in my own shit and too scared to sleep in the dark for weeks, but I had come face to face with the púca and lived to brag of it.”

  Odwain tried hard not to appear amused. “My uncle used to tell stories about the shapeshifters, but I always took them for tall tales meant to keep children from wandering too far from home.”

  “The púca are real enough,” Hywel said. “So are the fearsome creatures they fashion themselves into, though their true nature is not particularly threatening. They mean to intimidate more than anything else, but to a young lad alone in the woods they might as well have been wolves come to feed on me.”

  “I’m sure you made your father proud.”

  Hywel snorted at the thought. Cadell had been a hard man. “If he was, I never knew it. As I recall, he made me walk all the way back to Cwm Brith. Never said a word one way or the other, but he sent me back out there again a month later.”

  “At least he didn’t call you out for shitting yourself.”

  Hywel strangled a smile. “Few men have the stones to speak to me that way, MacDonagh.”

  “I’ve a bad habit of speaking the truth as I think it,” Odwain replied, more by way of explanation than apology. “I meant you no insult, Brenin.”

  “None was taken.” Hywel appreciated the use of his native Brython title. It was a show of respect that spoke well for this new conscript, but he had learned it was unwise to encourage familiarity too soon. “I don’t know you well enough yet to call you friend.”

  “Nor I you,” Odwain said, as straight-faced and bold as before.

  Hywel let the grin loose this time, but he also let the conversation come to a close. This plainspoken quality of Odwain’s was reassuring to a king who had more enemies than allies. Whatever it was that had so sobered such a young man had likely made him wise beyond his years as well. These were traits Hywel might value, if and when they proved out.

  Besides, Hywel knew a thing about being made a man young. He wouldn’t tell this story today, but the third time Cadell had forced him to brave the forest alone, Hywel had startled an eight-foot-long, three-headed serpent feeding on a fallow deer. Though he’d been only twelve, he managed to hack off all three heads with his boot dagger, but not before the creature struck. The venom had left him delirious and near death for days. Hywel could not remember how he got out of the woods, but he still had the fang his father’s physician had dug out of his hip—and the scar.

  A rustling sound caught his attention. Hywel stilled his thoughts, so he could listen harder. He had noticed it earlier, and it had seemed to be following them. Now he was sure it was dead ahead.

  Odwain was quick to notice Hywel’s distraction. “What is it?”

  “The forest is working its magic,” Cerrigwen said, pointing ahead. She had been quiet the entire journey until now.

  “But is it working its magic for us, or against us. That is the question.” Hywel pulled rein on his mount and waited for Odwain to sidle up. He knew what was happening, but he had never gotten used to it. “Watch, up ahead. See there? The road was bearing northeast, now it turns northwest.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t believe my own eyes.” Odwain was incredulous. “What now?”

  “The trick to travelling in these woods is to know your bearings and keep true to them no matter how your surroundings seem to change.” Hywel signaled to his regiment to follow and guided his horse off the cart path onto a narrower trail. “This way.”

  He led the others northeast, through a thick stand of ash and birch trees. On the other side of the stand, they met the proper road again, headed in its original direction. Hywel wondered if he had wisely avoided a lure or had just been duped into a detour. All the same, he was still sure of his course, though he would mind the way with greater care until they were clear of the White Woods.

  Thorne gave Rhys the lead for the first day, making no attempt to guide him, so as to get a full sense of the lad’s true talents. It had taken the young tracker only a few minutes to detect the now thin and stale scent of the Cythraul. By midday, Rhys had tracked the wraith trail as far as the narrow river that ran through the White Woods. There his senses had become confused by another scent that was stronger and fresher—and far more pleasant. So had Thorne’s senses responded, but he knew how to keep from losing his head.

  “River fey,” Thorne explained. “There is a Naiad bevy near.”

  Rhys struggled to concentrate. “The aroma is very strong.”

  “Naiad magic has a feminine scent. It can be a bit, well, distracting.” Thorne decided not to say just how distracting. “The longer we stay, the worse it will be.”

  “Can’t decide if I want to get closer or farther away,” Rhys complained, rubbing hard at the back of his neck.

  Thorne turned his horse downriver. “That’s the point, I’m afraid. Come on. There’s a shallows a few yards from here. We’ll cross the river and see what we find on the other side.”

  “You said before that you had already found the Cythraul trail,” Rhys reminded him. “Are we close?”

  For a moment, Thorne dithered over whether to leave his young friend to fend for himself a while longer, and then he decided it was too much to expect. “No doubt it will be very faint after so long, but my guess is you’ll pick up the scent yourself once we’ve put enough distance between us and the river fey.”

  “And if I don’t, I suppose you will just point us toward Banraven,” said Rhys. There was knowingness in his tone, but no accusation. “As I recall, you also said the trail led in that direction.”

  “So you’ve just been humoring me all this time?” Thorne cocked an
eyebrow and tried to look disapproving.

  Rhys grinned. “I figured you needed me to prove something. I didn’t mind. I like a good challenge.”

  “Took you long enough to call me on it.” Thorne was finding it harder and harder to conceal his favorable impression of this young man. He goaded his mount into motion and headed downstream. “Let’s get clear of this blasted fey magic and stop for the night.”

  Sure enough, Rhys was quick to scent the Cythraul again, and on the same vector Thorne had tracked them—which did indeed lead toward Banraven. The wraiths would return to their master, and he was the real danger. If this renegade mage were powerful enough to conjure and control Cythraul from leagues away, no telling what else he could do.

  They made another good mile’s travel before the afternoon began to fade. Fortunately they’d come upon a fairly protected spot to rest while there was still light enough to hunt, beneath a cluster of evergreen boughs thick enough to give at least a little shield should it rain. Thorne offered to build a fire and find water so that Rhys might try his luck with that sling of his. He was fond of rabbit stew, and Rhys had very good aim.

  But Thorne was also wanting a bit of solitude. He sensed unrest in this part of the forest, and he needed quiet to get to the root of it. Once he had a good blaze stoked in the little pit he had dug, Thorne settled back on his heels and closed his eyes, so he could concentrate on the unseen things in his surroundings—the auras and spectral essences of the woods.

  “What are you doing?” Rhys approached quietly, but not so quietly he hadn’t been heard.

  Thorne held up a hand to stop the interruption, continuing to squat with his eyes closed, searching the in-between places for signs of whatever might be amiss. Suddenly, a thought came to him, and he quickly calculated the days since the last full moon. Ah, so that’s it.

  Thorne relaxed and looked up. “Have you brought supper?”

  Rhys held up two fat red squirrels. “Best I could do.”

  “Hand them over.” Thorne reached for the carcasses with one hand and pulled his boot knife. “I’ll do the skinning. You do the cooking.”

  “What were you doing just now?” Rhys kicked at a pile of nearby mulch and fallen branches, looking for sticks thick enough to spit the squirrels in the fire.

  “We’re passing very close to the next world,” Thorne explained, making quick work of the skinning and gutting. He was hungry. “The moon is full, and a full moon works a powerful enchantment over thin places.”

  “Alright,” Rhys acknowledged. “But what were you doing?”

  Thorne wasn’t entirely sure how to answer in a way anyone other than the brethren would understand. “Listening.”

  Rhys scraped the bark off the two sticks he’d selected with his own boot knife and handed them to Thorne. “I’ve got salt in my sack, and some rosemary, I think.”

  “That’s it?” Thorne was surprised. He skewered the squirrel carcasses and staked them in the dirt, waiting for Rhys to return with the seasonings. “You’ve no more curiosity than that?”

  “It’s not so odd, you listening to the otherworld. My sister could speak to the faerie folk. She was different that way. She had our father’s fey blood.”

  Using his boot toe, Rhys scraped away damp leaves and duff until he exposed a relatively dry patch and then sat cross-legged on the ground near the fire. “I know more than I care to about thin places and what the light of a full moon can do.”

  Rhys rubbed salt and herbs on the meat and then anchored the spitted carcasses in the coals. His mood had sobered, giving the impression that the conversation had taken him somewhere he didn’t want to go. Thorne thought it best not to tread any closer to the heart of things just yet, but he was curious.

  “Then I won’t need to warn you to be cautious. No telling what we might encounter. If we’re lucky, we might just have Maelgwn with us tonight. You should save the entrails for him.”

  Thorne suddenly recalled an earlier annoyance. “That reminds me, Rhys, son of Bledig. When were you going to tell me you were also Rhys, son of Alwen?”

  Rhys flashed a sheepish grin. “You heard that, did you?”

  “Hmm,” Thorne said. “I thought we had an understanding about half-truths.”

  “We do. That bit was a precaution, for my mother’s sake. I was going to tell you, but you asked before I got around to it.”

  “There are four virtues of the Ruagaire Brotherhood,” Thorne said, deciding to venture down a slightly different path. “Veracity is the first and most sacred.”

  “Virtues?” Rhys asked.

  “Qualities of character,” said Thorne. “Before a man can be considered for induction to the Brotherhood, he must first have been observed conducting himself in accordance with certain merits—veracity, loyalty, righteousness, and forbearance.”

  Rhys nodded in acknowledgment as he poked at the embers with a twig to keep the heat high and even. “And just who does this observing?”

  “Each of us is charged with taking on an apprentice, but finding a suitable candidate is difficult,” Thorne said, measuring Rhys for signs of interest or awareness of Thorne’s intent. “It is an important decision, choosing someone to inherit his knowledge and his duties. It is also necessary to the survival of the Order, but very few men are born to the calling.”

  “How would one know if he were born to the calling?” Rhys asked, trying to appear less interested than he clearly was.

  “The most obvious indication is sensitivity to mage sign. That burning at the back of your neck, for example.” Thorne was trying to be subtle, but it wasn’t one of his stronger skills. “That comes from having some measure of mage blood in your lineage.”

  “So, you are descendants of sorcerers, but not actually sorcerers yourselves.”

  “Yes.” Thorne was beginning to feel expectant, which made him uneasy. He would not allow himself to want this too much. “We are born with a connection to the magical realms, but we have no real power over them. What we do have is a natural resistance to the influence of magic, which is what makes it possible for us to defend against or even capture a mage.”

  Thorne couldn’t tell if Rhys was simply interested in the information or if he had made the connection to his own potential, so he decided to push just a little. “Often the gifts go unrecognized for what they are and more often than not are mistaken for something more ordinary, like a knack for tracking or a strong intuition. But it is much more than that.”

  “I suppose a person would have no way of telling unless he were to come to know someone like you,” Rhys said.

  “And it might well not ever happen, such a meeting. The Ruagaire is a breed so rare that one might live his entire life without ever encountering another, aside from the rest of the brethren,” said Thorne. “But it is not enough to be born to the calling. There are the virtues, as I mentioned before, and then there is the training. The Brotherhood is a lifelong dedication, to faith and to sacrifice. It is a pledge to be taken by only the most worthy of this world, and I would be lucky to come across just one such man in my entire lifetime.”

  “Have you?” Rhys asked, screwing up the confidence to meet Thorne’s gaze directly. “Ever found such a man, I mean?”

  “It is too soon to be sure,” Thorne said quietly, struggling to contain the swell of gratitude he felt. He was not yet ready to reveal it to Rhys, but Thorne was about as sure as he could be. “But I think so.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Glain’s eyes opened to a warm room and light peeking between the drapery panels drawn over her window casing. She sat up with a start, panicked by the sense of disorientation that came with awaking from a very deep sleep. Was the day waxing or waning? The last thing she recalled was watching Rhys ride away just after dawn. Glain had been up the entire night before, dispatching Alwen’s directives and seeing to the Sovereign’s comfort.

 
Good Gods, she thought, throwing off the coverlet to discover she was still fully clothed, except for her shoes. How long had she slept? She had left precise instructions with one of the prefects to rouse her before midday, but it felt as though a good deal more than two or three hours had passed. Glain slid from the bed and threw open the draperies, making a best guess at the time through the cloud cover. It was a good while before noon, maybe just mid-morning, if she were lucky.

  Hopping on one foot to shoe the other, Glain thought a moment on whether she should wear the proctor’s mantle. She hated that robe, but circumstances did seem to warrant the protocol. Like it or not, the gold-trimmed black camlet called attention to her authority, and Glain had to admit that was an advantage she needed just now.

  It wasn’t until she was leaving her room that Glain realized that she had slept without dreaming, for the first time in so many days that she had lost count. If only she knew whether that was a good sign, or bad.

  As she approached the Sovereign’s suite, Glain noticed one of the outer doors stood half open. She rapped twice and then entered the receptory, expecting to find one of the prefects tending to Alwen’s comforts. The throne room was empty, but the lamps were lit, and the hearth in the adjacent sitting room well stoked. Perhaps the attendant had been careless upon leaving.

  “Sovereign?” Glain crossed the receptory, peering through the doorway into the shadowy scriptorium, thinking she might find Alwen at the window again. But the window was shuttered and the room empty, which left only the bedchamber.

  The door to Alwen’s most private space was closed, but Glain was worried now. As far as she could tell, the Sovereign had yet to rise this morning. Glain knocked hard as she turned the handle and pushed the door in. “Sovereign?”