The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

GWYDION AND THE DRAGON C. J. Cherryh

Once upon a time there was a dragon, and once upon that time a prince who undertook to win the hand of the elder and fairer of two princesses.

Not that this prince wanted either of Madog’s daughters, although rumors said that Eri was as wise and as gentle, as sweet and as fair as her sister Glasog was cruel and ill-favored. The truth was that this prince would marry either princess if it would save his father and his people; and neither if he had had any choice in the matter. He was Gwydion ap Ogan, and of princes in Dyfed he was the last.

Being a prince of Dyfed did not, understand, mean banners and trumpets and gilt armor and crowds of courtiers. King Ogan’s palace was a rambling stone house of dusty rafters hung with cooking pots and old harness; King Ogan’s wealth was mostly in pigs and pastures—the same as all Ogan’s subjects; Gwydion’s war-horse was a black gelding with a crooked blaze and shaggy feet, who had fought against the bandits from the high hills. Gwydion’s armor, serviceable in that perpetual warfare, was scarred leather and plain mail, with new links bright among the old; and lance or pennon he had none—the folk of Ogan’s kingdom were not lowland knights, heavily armored, but hunters in the hills and woods, and for weapons this prince carried only a one-handed sword and a bow and a quiver of gray-feathered arrows.

His companion, riding beside him on a bay pony, happened through no choice of Gwydion’s to be Owain ap Llodri, the houndmaster’s son, his good friend, by no means his squire: Owain had lain in wait along the way, on a borrowed bay mare—Owain had simply assumed he was going, and that Gwydion had only hesitated, for friendship’s sake, to ask him. So he saved Gwydion the necessity.

And the lop-eared old dog trotting by the horses’ feet was Mili: Mili was fierce with bandits, and had respected neither Gwydion’s entreaties nor Owain’s commands thus far: stones might drive her off for a few minutes, but Mili came back again, that was the sort Mili was. That was the sort Owain was too, and Gwydion could refuse neither of them. So Mili panted along at the pace they kept, with big-footed Blaze and the bownosed bay, whose name might have been Swallow or maybe not—the poets forget—and as they rode Owain and Gwydion talked mostly about dogs and hunting.

That, as the same poets say, was the going of Prince Gwydion into King Madog’s realm.

Now no one in Dyfed knew where Madog had come from. Some said he had been a king across the water. Some said he was born of a Roman and a Piet and had gotten sorcery through his mother’s blood. Some said he had bargained with a dragon for his sorcery—certainly there was a dragon: devastation followed Madog’s conquests, from one end of Dyfed to the other.

Reasonably reliable sources said Madog had applied first to King Bran, across the mountains, to settle at his court, and Bran having once laid eyes on Madog’s elder daughter, had lusted after her beyond all good sense and begged Madog for her.

Give me your daughter, Bran had said to Madog, and I’ll give you your heart’s desire. But Madog had confessed that Eri was betrothed already, to a terrible dragon, who sometimes had the form of a man, and who had bespelled Madog and all his house: if Bran could overcome this dragon he might have Eri with his blessings, and his gratitude and the faithful help of his sorcery all his life; but if he died childless, Madog, by Bran’s own oath, must be his heir.

That was the beginning of Madog’s kingdom. So smitten was Bran that he swore to those terms, and died that very day, after which Madog ruled in his place.

After that Madog had made the same proposal to three of his neighbor kings, one after the other, proposing that each should ally with him and unite their kingdoms if the youngest son could win Eri from the dragon’s spell and provide him an heir. But no prince ever came back from his quest. And the next youngest then went, until all the sons of the kings were gone, so that the kingdoms fell under Madog’s rule.

After them, Madog sent to King Ban, and his sons died, last of all Prince Rhys, Gwydion’s friend. Ban’s heart broke, and Ban took to his bed and died.

Some whispered now that the dragon actually served Madog, that it had indeed brought Madog to power, under terms no one wanted to guess, and that this dragon did indeed have another form, which was the shape of a knight in strange armor, who would become Eri’s husband if no other could win her. Some said (but none could prove the truth of it) that the dragon-knight had come from far over the sea, and that he devoured the sons and daughters of conquered kings, that being the tribute Madog gave him. But whatever the truth of that rumor, the dragon hunted far and wide in the lands Madog ruled and did not disdain to take the sons and daughters of farmers and shepherds too. Devastation went under his shadow, trees withered under his breath, and no one saw him outside his dragon shape and returned to tell of it, except only Madog and (rumor said) his younger daughter Glasog, who was a sorceress as cruel as her father.

Some said that Glasog could take the shape of a raven and fly over the land choosing whom the dragon might take. The people called her Madog s Crow, and feared the look of her eye. Some said she was the true daughter of Madog and that Madog had stolen Eri from Faerie, and given her mother to the dragon; but others said they were twins, and that Eri had gotten all that an ordinary person had of goodness, while her sister Glasog—

“Prince Gwydion,” Glasog said to her father, “would have come on the quest last year with his friend Rhys, except his father’s refusing him, and Prince Gwydion will not let his land go to war if he can find another course. He’ll persuade his father. ”

“Good,” Madog said. “That’s very good.” Madog smiled, but Glasog did not. Glasog was thinking of the dragon. Glasog harbored no illusions: the dragon had promised Madog that he would be king of all Wales if he could achieve this in seven years; and rule for seventy and seven more with the dragon’s help.

But if he failed—failed by the seventh year to gain any one of the kingdoms of Dyfed, if one stubborn king withstood him and for one day beyond the seven allotted years, kept him from obtaining the least, last stronghold of the west, then all the bargain was void and Madog would have failed in everything.

And the dragon would claim a forfeit of his choosing.

That was what Glasog thought of, in her worst nightmares: that the dragon had always meant to have all the kingdoms of the west with very little effort—let her father win all but one and fail, on the smallest letter of the agreement. What was more, all the generals in all the armies they had taken agreed that the kingdom of Ogan could never be taken by force: there were mountains in which resistance could hide and not even dragonfire could burn all of them; but most of all there was the fabled Luck of Ogan, which said that no force of arms could defeat the sons of Ogan.

Watch, Madog had said. And certainly her father was astute, and cunning, and knew how to snare a man by his pride. There s always a way, her father had said, to break a spell. This one has a weakness. The strongest spells most surely have their soft spots.

And Ogan had one son, and that was Prince Gwydion.

Now we will fetch him, Madog said to his daughter. Now we will see what his luck is worth.

The generals said, “If you would have a chance in war, first be rid of Gwydion.”

But Madog said, and Glasog agreed, there are other uses for Gwydion.

“It doesn’t look different,” Owain said as they passed the border stone.

It was true. Nothing looked changed at all. There was no particular odor of evil, or of threat. It might have been last summer, when the two of them had hunted with Rhys. They had used to hunt together every summer, and last autumn they had tracked the bandit Llewellyn to his lair, and caught him with stolen sheep. But in the spring Ban's sons had gone to seek the hand of Madog’s daughter, and one by one had died, last of them, in early summer, Rhys himself.

Gwydion would have gone, long since, and long before Rhys. A score of times Gwydion had approached his father King Ogan and his mother Queen Belys and begged to try his luck against Madog, from the first time Madog’s messenger had appeared and challenged the kings of Dyfed to war or wedlock. But each time Ogan had refused him, arguing in the first place that other princes, accustomed to warfare on their borders, were better suited, and better armed, and that there were many princes in Dyfed, but he had only one son.

But when Rhys had gone and failed, the last kingdom save that of King Ogan passed into Madog’s hands. And Gwydion, grief-stricken with the loss of his friend, said to his parents, “If we had stood together we might have defeated this Madog; if we had taken the field then, together, we might have had a chance; if you had let me go with Rhys one of us might have won and saved the other. But now Rhys is dead and we have Madog for a neighbor. Let me go when he sends to us. Let me try my luck at courting his daughter. A war with him now we may not lose, but we cannot hope to win.”

Even so Ogan had resisted him, saying that they still had their mountains for a shield, difficult going for any army; and arguing that their luck had saved them this far and that it was rash to take matters into their own hands.

Now the nature of that luck was this: that of the kingdom in Dyfed, Ogan’s must always be poorest and plainest. But that luck meant that they could not fail in war nor fail in harvest: it had come down to them from Ogan’s own greatgrandfather Ogan ap Ogan of Llanfynnyd, who had sheltered one of the Faerie unaware; and only faithlessness could break it—so greatgrandfather Ogan had said. So: Our luck will be our defense,” Ogan argued with his son. “Wait and let Madog come to us. We’ll fight him in the mountains.”

“Will we fight a dragon? Even if we defeat Madog himself, what of our herds, what of our farmers and our freeholders? Can we let the land go to waste and let our people feed this dragon, while we hide in the hills and wait for luck to save us? Is that faithfulness?” That was what Gwydion had asked his father, while Madog’s herald was in the hall—a raven black as unrepented sin . . . or the intentions of a wizard.

“Madog bids you know,” this raven had said, perched on a rafter of Ogan’s hall, beside a moldering basket of a string of garlic, “that he has taken every kingdom of Dyfed but this. He offers you what he offered others: if King Ogan has a son worthy to win Madog’s daughter and get an heir, then King Ogan may rule in peace over his kingdom so long as he lives, and that prince will have titles and the third of Madog’s realm besides. . . .

But if the prince will not or cannot win the princess, then Ogan must swear Madog is his lawful true heir. And if Ogan refuses this, then Ogan must face Madog’s army, which now is the army of four kingdoms each greater than his own. Surely,” the raven had added, fixing all present with a wicked, midnight eye, “it is no great endeavor Madog asks—simply to court his daughter. And will so many die, so much burn? Or will Prince Gwydion win a realm wider than your own? A third of Madog’s lands is no small dowry and inheritance of Madog’s kingdom is no small prize.”

So the raven had said. And Gwydion had said to his mother, “Give me your blessing,” and to his father Ogan: “Swear the oath Madog asks. If our Luck can save us it will save me and win me this bride; but if it fails me in this it would have failed us in any case.”

Maybe, Gwydion thought as they passed the border, Owain was a necessary part of that luck. Maybe even Mili was. It seemed to him now that he dared reject nothing that loved him and favored him, even if it was foolish and even if it broke his heart: his luck seemed so perilous and stretched so thin already he dared not bargain with his fate.

“No sign of a dragon, either,” Owain said, looking about them at the rolling hills.

Gwydion looked about him too, and at the sky, which showed only the lazy flight of a single bird.

Might it be a raven? It was too far to tell.

“I’d think,” said Owain, “it would seem grimmer than it does.”

Gwydion shivered as if a cold wind had blown. But Blaze plodded his heavyfooted way with no semblance of concern, and Mili trotted ahead, tongue lolling, occasionally sniffing along some trail that crossed theirs.

“Mili would smell a dragon,” Owain said.

“Are you sure?” Gwydion asked. He was not. If Madog’s younger daughter could be a raven at her whim he was not sure what a dragon might be at its pleasure.

That night they had a supper of brown bread and sausages that Gwydion’s mother had sent, and ale that Owain had with him.

“My mother’s brewing,” Owain said. “My father’s store.” And Owain sighed and said: “By now they must surely guess I’m not off hunting. ”

“You didn’t tell them?” Gwydion asked. “You got no blessing in this?”

Owain shrugged, and fed a bit of sausage to Mili, who gulped it down and sat looking at them worshipfully.

Owain’s omission of duty worried Gwydion. He imagined how Owain’s parents would first wonder where he had gone, then guess, and fear for Owain’s life, for which he held himself entirely accountable. In the morning he said, “Owain, go back. This is far enough.”

But Owain shrugged and said, “Not I. Not without you.” Owain rubbed Mili’s ears. “No more then Mili, without me.”

Gwydion had no least idea now what was faithfulness and what was a young man’s foolish pride. Everything seemed tangled. But Owain seemed not in the least distressed.

Owain said, “We’ll be there by noon tomorrow.”

Gwydion wondered, Where is this dragon? and distrusted the rocks around them and the sky over their heads. He felt a presence in the earth—or thought he felt it. But Blaze and Swallow grazed at their leisure. Only Mili looked worried—Mili pricked up her ears, such as those long ears could prick, wondering, perhaps, if they were going to get to bandits soon, and whether they were, after all, going to eat that last bit of breakfast sausage.

“He’s on his way,” Glasog said. “He’s passed the border.”

“Good,” said Madog. And to his generals: “Didn’t I tell you?”

The generals still looked worried.

But Glasog went and stood on the walk of the castle that had been Ban’s, looking out over the countryside and wondering what the dragon was thinking tonight, whether the dragon had foreseen this as he had foreseen the rest, or whether he was even yet keeping some secret from them, scheming all along for their downfall.

She launched herself quite suddenly from the crest of the wall, swooped out over the yard and beyond, over the seared fields.

The dragon, one could imagine, knew about Ogan’s Luck. The dragon was too canny to face it—and doubtless was chuckling in his den in the hills.

Glasog flew that way, but saw nothing from that cave but a little curl of smoke— there was almost always smoke. And Glasog leaned toward the west, following the ribbon of a road, curious, and wagering that the dragon this time would not bestir himself.

Her father wagered the same. And she knew very well what he wagered, indeed she did: duplicity for duplicity—if not the old serpent’s aid, then human guile; if treachery from the dragon, then put at risk the dragon’s prize. ’

Gwydion and Owain came to a burned farmstead along the road. Mili sniffed about the blackened timbers and bristled at the shoulders, and came running back to Owain’s whistle, not without mistrustful looks behind her.

There was nothing but a black ruin beside a charred, brittle orchard.

I wonder, Owain said, ‘what became of the old man and his wife.”

I don t, said Gwydion, worrying for his own parents, and seeing in this example how they would fare in any retreat into the hills.

The burned farm was the first sign they had seen of the dragon, but it was not the last. There were many other ruins, and sad and terrible sights. One was a skull sitting on a fence row. And on it sat a raven.

“This was a brave man,” it said, and pecked the skull, which rang hollowly, and inclined its head toward the field beyond. “That was his wife. And farther still his young daughter. ”

“Don’t speak to it,” Gwydion said to Owain. They rode past, at Blaze’s plodding pace, and did not look back.

But the raven flitted ahead of them and waited for them on the stone fence. “If you die,” the raven said, “then your father will no longer believe in his luck. Then it will leave him. It happened to all the others.”

“There’s always a first,” said Gwydion.

Owain said, reaching for his bow: “Shall I shoot it?”

But Gwydion said: “Kill the messenger for the message? No. It’s a foolish creature. Let it be.”

It left them then. Gwydion saw it sometimes in the sky ahead of them. He said nothing to Owain, who had lost his cheerfulness, and Mili stayed close by them, sore of foot and suspicious of every breeze.

There were more skulls. They saw gibbets and stakes in the middle of a burned orchard. There was scorched grass, recent and powdery under the horses’ hooves. Blaze, who loved to snatch a bite now and again as he went, moved uneasily, snorting with dislike of the smell, and Swallow started at shadows.

Then the turning of the road showed them a familiar brook, and around another hill and beyond, the walled holding that had been King Ban’s, in what had once been a green valley. Now it was burned, black bare hillsides and the ruin of hedges and orchards.

So the trial they had come to find must be here, Gwydion thought, and uneasily took up his bow and picked several of his best arrows, which he held against his knee as he rode. Owain did the same.

But they reached the gate of the low-walled keep unchallenged, until they came on the raven sitting, whetting its beak on the stone. It looked at them solemnly, saying, “Welcome, Prince Gwydion. You’ve won your bride. Now how will you fare, I wonder.”

Men were coming from the keep, running toward them, others, under arms, in slower advance.

“What now?” Owain asked, with his bow across his knee; and Gwydion lifted his bow and bent it, aiming at the foremost.

The crowd stopped, but a black-haired man in gray robes and a king’s gold chain came alone, holding up his arms in a gesture of welcome and of peace. Madog himself? Gwydion wondered, while Gwydion s arm shook and the string trembled in his grip. “Is it Gwydion ap Ogan?” that man asked—surely no one else but Madog would wear that much gold. “My son-in-law to be! Welcome!”

Gwydion, with great misgivings, slacked the string and let down the bow, while fat Blaze, better trained than seemed, finally shifted feet. Owain lowered his bow too, as King Madog’s men opened up the gate. Some of the crowd cheered as they rode in, and more took it up, as if they had only then gained the courage or understood it was expected. Blaze and Swallow snorted and threw their heads at the racket, as Gwydion and Owain put away their arrows, unstrung their bows and hung them on their saddles.

But Mili stayed close by Owain’s legs as they dismounted, growling low in her throat, and barked one sharp warning when Madog came close. “Hush,” Owain bade her, and knelt down more than for respect, keeping one hand on Mili’s muzzle and the other in her collar, whispering to her, “Hush, hush, there’s a good dog.”

Gwydion made the bow a prince owed to a king and prospective father-in-law, all the while thinking that there had to be a trap in this place. He was entirely sorry to see grooms lead Blaze and Swallow away, and kept Owain and Mili constantly in the tail of his eye as Madog took him by the arms and hugged him. Then Madog said, catching all his attention, eye to eye with him for a moment, “What a well-favored young man you are. The last is always best. So youve killed the dragon.”

Gwydion thought, Somehow we’ve ridden right past the trial we should have met. If I say no, he will find cause to disallow me; and he’ll kill me and Owain and all our kin.

But lies were not the kind of dealing his father had taught him; faithfulness was the rule of the house of Ogan; so Gwydion looked the king squarely in the eyes and said, “I met no dragon.”

Madog’s eyes showed surprise, and Madog said: “Met no dragon?”

“Not a shadow of a dragon.”

Madog grinned and clapped him on the shoulder and showed him to the crowd, saying, “This is your true prince!”

Then the crowd cheered in earnest, and even Owain and Mili looked heartened. Owain rose with Mili’s collar firmly in hand.

Madog said then to Gwydion, under his breath, “If you had lied you would have met the dragon here and now. Do you know you’re the first one who’s gotten this far?”

“I saw nothing,” Gwydion said again, as if Madog had not understood him. “Only burned farms. Only skulls and bones.”

Madog turned a wide smile toward him, showing teeth. “Then it was your destiny to win. Was it not?” And Madog faced him about toward the doors of the keep. “Daughter, daughter, come out!”

Gwydion hesitated a step, expecting he knew not what—the dragon itself, perhaps: his wits went scattering toward the gate, the horses being led away, Mili barking in alarm—and a slender figure standing in the doorway, all white and gold. “My elder daughter,” Madog said. “Eri.”

Gwydion went as he was led, telling himself it must be true, after so much dread of this journey and so many friends’ lives lost—obstacles must have fallen down for him, Ogan’s Luck must still be working. . . .

The young bride waiting for him was so beautiful, so young and so—kind_

was the first word that came to him—Eri smiled and immediately it seemed to him she was innocent of all the grief around her, innocent and good as her sister was reputed cruel and foul.

He took her hand, and the folk of the keep all cheered, calling him their prince; and if any were Ban’s people, those wishes might well come from the heart, with fervent hopes of rescue. Pipers began to play, gentle hands urged them both inside, and in this desolate land some woman found flowers to give Eri.

Owain? Gwydion cried, looking back, suddenly seeing no sign of him or of Mili: “Owain!”

He refused to go farther until Owain could part the crowd and reach his side, Mili firmly in hand. Owain looked breathless and frightened. Gwydion felt the same. But the crowd pushed and pulled at them, the pipers piped and dancers danced, and they brought them into a hall smelling of food and ale.

It can’t be this simple, Gwydion still thought, and made up his mind that no one should part him from Owain, Mili, or their swords. He looked about him, bedazzled, at a wedding feast that must have taken days to prepare. ’

But how could they know I’d get here? he wondered. Did they do this for all the suitors who failed—and celebrate their funerals, then . . . with their wedding feast?

At which thought he felt cold through and through, and found Eri’s hand on his arm disquieting; but Madog himself waited to receive them in the hall, and joined their hands and plighted them their vows, to make them man and wife, come what might—

“So long as you both shall live,” Madog said, pressing their hands together. “And when there is an heir Prince Gwydion shall have the third of my lands, and his father shall rule in peace so long as he shall live.”

Gwydion misliked the last—Gwydion thought in alarm: As long as he lives. But Madog went on, saying, “—be you wed, be you wed, be you wed,” three times, as if it were a spell—then: “Kiss your bride, son-in-law.”

The well-wishes from the guests roared like the sea. The sea was in Eri’s eyes, deep and blue and drowning. He heard Mili growl as he kissed Eri s lips once, twice, three times.

The pipers played, the people cheered, no few of whom indeed might have been King Ban's, or Lugh’s, or Lughdan’s. Perhaps, Gwydion dared think, perhaps it was hope he brought to them, perhaps he truly had won, after all, and the dreadful threat Madog posed was lifted, so that Madog would be their neighbor, no worse than the worst they had had, and perhaps, if well-disposed, better than one or two.

Perhaps, he thought, sitting at Madog’s right hand with his bride at his right and with Owain just beyond, perhaps there truly was cause to hope, and he could ride away from here alive—though he feared he could find no cause to do so tonight, with so much prepared, with an anxious young bride and King Madog determined to indulge his beautiful daughter. Women hurried about with flowers and with torches, with linens and with brooms and platters and plates, tumblers ran riot, dancers leaped and cavorted—one of whom came to grief against an ale-server. Both went down, in Madog’s very face, and the hall grew still and dangerous.

But Eri laughed and clapped her hands, a laughter so small and faint until her father laughed, and all the hall laughed; and Gwydion remembered then to breathe, while Eri hugged his arm and laughed up at him with those sea-blue eyes.

“More ale!” Madog called. “Less spillage, there!”

The dreadful wizard could joke, then. Gwydion drew two easier breaths, and someone filled their cups. He drank, but prudently: he caught Owain’s eye, and Owain his—while Mili having found a bone to her liking, with a great deal of meat to it, worried it happily in the straw beneath the table.

There were healths drunk, there were blessings said, at each of which one had to drink—and Madog laughed and called Gwydion a fine son-in-law, asked him about his campaign against the bandits and swore he was glad to have his friends and his kin and anyone he cared to bring here: Madog got up and clapped Owain on the shoulder too, and asked was Owain wed, and, informed Owain was not, called out to the hall that here was another fine catch, and where were the young maids to keep Owain from chill on his master’s wedding night?

Owain protested in some embarrassment, starting to his feet—

But drink overcame him, and he sat down again with a hand to his brow, Gwydion saw it with concern, while Madog touched Gwydion’s arm on the other side and said, “The women are ready,” slyly bidding him finish his ale beforehand.

Gwydion rose and handed his bride to her waiting women. “Owain!” Gwydion said then sharply, and Owain gained his feet, saying something Gwydion could not hear for with all the people cheering and the piper starting up, but he saw Owain was distressed. Gwydion resisted the women pulling at him, stood fast until Owain reached him, flushed with ale and embarrassment. The men surrounded him with bawdy cheers and more offered cups.

It was his turn then on the stairs, more cups thrust on him, Madog clapping him on the shoulder and hugging him and calling him the son he had always wanted, and saying there should be peace in Dyfed for a hundred years . . . unfailing friendship with his father and his kin—greater things, should he have ambitions. . . .

The room spun around. Voices buzzed. They pushed him up the stairs, Owain and Mili notwithstanding, Mili barking all the while. They brought him down the upstairs hall, they opened the door to the bridal chamber.

On pitch dark.

Perhaps it was cowardly to balk. Gwydion thought so, in the instant the laughing men gave him a push between the shoulders. Shame kept him from calling Owain to his rescue. The door shut at his back.

He heard rustling in the dark and imagined coils and scales. Eri’s soft voice said, “My lord?”

A faint starlight edged the shutters. His eyes made out the furnishings, now that the flare of torches had left his sight. It was the rustling of bedclothes he heard. He saw a woman’s shoulder and arm faintly in the shadowed bed, in the scant starshine that shutter let through.

He backed against the door, found the latch behind him, cracked it the least little bit outward and saw Owain leaning there against his arm, facing the lamplit wall outside, flushed of face and ashamed to meet his eyes at such close range.

“I’m here, m’lord,” Owain breathed, on ale-fumes. Owain never called him lord, but Owain was greatly embarrassed tonight. “The lot’s gone down the stairs now. I’ll be here the night. I’ll not leave this door, nor sleep, I swear to you.”

Gwydion gave him a worried look, wishing the two of them dared escape this hall and Madog’s well-wishes, running pell-mell back to his own house, his parents’ advice, and childhood. But, “Good,” he said, and carefully pulled the door to, making himself blind in the dark again. He let the latch fall and catch.

“My lord?” Eri said faintly.

He felt quite foolish, himself and Owain conspiring together like two boys at an orchard wall, when it was a young bride waiting for him, innocent and probably as anxious as he. He nerved himself, walked up by the bed and opened the shutters wide on a night sky brighter than the dark behind him.

But with the cool night wind blowing into the room he thought of dragons, wondered whether opening the window to the sky was wise at all, and wondered what was slipping out of bed with the whispering of the bedclothes. His bride forwardly clasped his arm, wound fingers into his and swayed against him, saying how beautiful the stars were.

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 pretence 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 windowledge, 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 greatgrandfather had said only faithlessness could break—

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

If that was the barb in greatgrandfather’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 own 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 moondust 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 it 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.”

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.

“Daughter,” Madog said, descending those same steps as Glasog rose up, wrapped in black and silver. Mili growled and bristled, suddenly strained at her leash—

The dragon loosed it and Mili sprang for Madog’s throat. Madog fell under the hound and Madog’s blood was on the steps—but his neck was already broken.

Servants ran screaming. Men at arms stood confused, as if they had quite forgotten what they were doing or where they were or what had brought them there, the men of the fallen kingdoms all looking at one another and wondering what terrible thing had held them here.

And on all of this Glasog turned her back, walking up the steps.

“My lady!” Owain cried—for it was Owain wore the armor; but it was not Owain’s voice she longed to hear.

Glasog let fall the cloak and leaped from the wall. The raven glided away, with one harsh cry against the wind.

In time after—often in that bitter winter, when snows lay deep and wind skirled drifts about the door—Owain told how Glasog had pierced the dragon’s eye; and how they had found the armor, and how Glasog had told him the last secret, that with the dragon dead, Madog’s sorcery would leave him.

That winter, too, Gwydion found a raven in the courtyard, a crippled bird, missing feathers on one wing. It seemed greatly confused, so far gone with hunger and with cold that no one thought it would live. But Gwydion tended it until spring and set it free again.

It turned up thereafter on the wall of Gwydion’s keep—King Gwydion, he was Gwydion and the Dragon now—lord of all Dyfed. “You’ve one wish left,” he said to it. “One wish left of me.

“I give it to you,” the raven said. “Whatever you wish, King Gwydion.”

“Be what you wish to be,” Gwydion said.

And thereafter men told of the wisdom of King Gwydion as often as of the beauty of his wife.