The Emerald Flame by Frewin Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

writhed. Small, almost human bundles, like dead babies made from sticks and brown skins, their deformed bodies stuffed with dry moss and fungus, their faces taut and featureless save for great, hollow, staring eyes.
    Horrified, Branwen struggled against an urge to flee.
    She managed a hoarse whisper. “Did you kill Fain?”
    The guttural laughter sounded again, and the dark shape leaned forward so its face came into the light.
    It was an ancient face, scored and pitted and as desiccated as weather-worn stone. It was ugly in a waybut also beyond any human idea of ugliness, with its beetling brow, its hollow cheeks and its hidden eyes. Its nose was a rough, hooked splinter, its mouth a thin crack. Hair hung about it like filthy cobwebs. It was a face as old as time, and in the black pools of the eyes lurked a yellow loathing.
    Branwen sucked in a sharp breath as the narrow crack of the mouth gaped suddenly wide. A dark shape burst out from between the taut lips, flying into Branwen’s face in a shrieking mass of gashing claws and battering wings.

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    “C AW! CAW! CAW! ”
    At the last moment the bird skewed off to one side, one wing slapping Branwen’s cheek as she ducked to avoid being struck.
    “Fain!”
    The terrified falcon circled the cavern, screeching in its wild flight, its wings striking against the stone, its shadow cavorting over the walls.
    Branwen lifted her arm, relieved that he was alive but hating to see her friend in such distress. “Come! Come to me!”
    The falcon darted through the darkling air, and at last it came onto her wrist; and she winced as the talons dug into her flesh.
    “Don’t fear, Fain,” Branwen murmured, ignoring the pain. “You are safe from harm.” The bird satshivering, its head tucked deep in its neck feathers, its beady eyes on Merion.
    “Safe from harm?” Merion’s voice was like a winter wind blown across an ocean of ice. “Think you so, Warrior Child?”
    “I do,” Branwen said, forcing her voice not to betray her dread.
    “Why so, Warrior Child?”
    “Because if you wished me dead, I would not be standing here before you.”
    The head nodded. “A wise fool you are.”
    “Why a fool?”
    “Only a fool would meddle in the affairs of the Shining Ones.”
    “Meddle?” This was absurd! “I do not
meddle
with you. I have done everything I can to keep away! It’s you—you and Rhiannon and Govannon—who have brought me to this!”
    “Is that so?” came the cold, parched voice. “Then why do you wear the stones? Why do you bear the key? These are the tokens of one who offers herself willingly.” There was that cruel laughter again. “Or is it that you do not know their purpose?”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” Branwen said, a spark of anger igniting among her fear. “I am half dead of riddles and conundrums. I was told to come here. I came. What do you want of me?”
    “I want to relieve my hunger and slake my thirst,” croaked the voice. “What do I want of you, Warrior Child? Why, I want to gnaw the scalp from your headand wear your long dark hair around my neck to ward off the winter chills. I want to eat your face, child: lips, cheeks, and chin. I want to feel your eyeballs burst between my teeth. I want to chew on your tongue and suck the soft meats from your bloody and raw-boned skull.”
    Branwen stared at the old hag in horror. Was this it, then? Had Blodwedd been right? Had she come here to face nothing but a dreadful death?
    The humped shape rose from behind the candle flame and came slowly forward, one clawed hand clutching the handle of a misshapen stick. Merion of the Stones looked very much as Branwen had imagined. A hag, stooped and humpbacked, clad in shapeless ragged gray robes, tottering on feeble feet. But it was a shock to Branwen to see how Merion, bent and withered as she was, towered over her as she shuffled closer, her gray head almost scraping the stone roof of the cavern.
    Branwen’s hand moved to her hip—reaching for the