Dragon's Keep (20 page)

I pressed on, knowing I would at some time
meet the shore. Soaked and worn, I reached the top of the trail at last.

The cold gusts pushed me now backward, now forward,
bur I didn't care a bit, for there was the sea! And if the rain kept up, and if
I made it to the shore, I might be rescued!

Handy with my crutch, I scurried down the
steep trail, my heart clattering in my chest like Cook's spoon in a kettle.
Then making a sharp turn, I tripped on a root, lost my footing, and plunged
headlong down the ravine. I shut my mouth against my screams as I slid and
grabbed for roots to stop my fall. I had nearly plunged into the river when I
came to a sudden stop between two jutting rocks. Scratched and torn, ankle
throbbing, crutch gone, I wept.

Wedged between two stones, I lay filthy and
crumpled. I cursed the dragon, cursed my broken self, and curled up there a
long while weeping.

With great care, so as not to tumble in the
river, I pulled myself free from the stones. Little by little, I dragged
myself up the incline, crying out each time I slid back in the frothy mud. I
was stranded as a flea in a beer mug, and could not get out on my own. After an
hour or more, struggling against the spilling mud, I felt the sun come out
above. Droplets on the leaves and ferns sparkled all
round
me like a fairy's tears, and my spirits rose. I crept upward, thinking I might
still escape.

But as soon as the sun was master again, I
heard the pounding of great wings and felt his shadow come. The creature
flared out fire, and circled overhead as a hawk above its kill. Swooping down,
he caught me in his claws and darted skyward.

Across the isle he flew and did not bring me
to the cave but landed on a high hill, which was dressed in purple and yellow
from milkweed, thistle, and wild mustafd. The smell of the day's rain was still
tender in the grass.

"Pluck the milkweed and the
thistle," said Faul, tossing me my crutch.

I stood shaking in the damp grass. Milkweed
was harmless
enough, but thistles? I gazed
at their purple flowers, spiny leaves,
and
stems. "Ah," Marn used to say. "Pluck thistles if you be of a
mind
to enrage a dragon, for they go mad around them. There's nothing like a
dragon's rage once around a thistle."

"Thistles, too?"
I whispered.

"Uproot them now, Briar!" he
ordered. "And lay them at my feet!"

I hobbled on the hill and did as he
commanded,
first pulling up the milkweed by the roots and
laying them nearby, then kneeling near the thistles.

Lord Faul growled as I dug around the thistle
stems. The noise, coming from deep within his throat, shot shivers through my
bones. I felt Faul's anger, like a thing upon my back, so I turned my head a
bit and kept the corner of my eye on him. The spiny stems and leaves cut into
my hands even through my golden gloves, and I saw a spot of blood between the
weave. Still I labored hour on hour in the dragon's glare, sure the work was
some strange punishment for trying to escape.

Just as the sun sank behind the hills I laid
another load of lour and twenty thistles at the dragon's feet. The day's
hunger, and the hours of gathering, hollowed me. I leaned on my crutch

and
wiped the sweat from my forehead. The milkweed and
thistle pile was by now waist high. If this was my punishment, I'd had my fill
of it.

"Is it enough?" I asked.

Faul gave a rumble like the lowering of a
drawbridge and pointed to the thistles with his tail. Back I went.

The purpose of the task struck me then, and I
reeled with the knowledge of it. How many times had I watched Cook chopping
onions, parsnips, and mustard greens whilst a fat
pig roasted over
the flames? I was to be the center of the dragon's
feast, and with my own hands he had me plucking the garnish! God's bones! I
faced Lord Faul and threw my last handful to the ground.

"I'll pluck no more!"

He laughed and gripped me in one claw, took
up the milkweed and thistles in the other, and flew above the trees.

Wheeling over the tumbling falls, Faul
swooped, landed on the shore, and plunged my head into the water. The coldness
of it and the shock set me to thrashing. I held my breath and kicked and kicked
until he pulled me up.

"Drown me?" I choked. "Is this
the way you prepare your meal?

"Drink!" ordered Faul, and he
lowered me down again. This time my cheeks touched against the water, and I
sucked.

In the dragon's den
Lord Faul left me by the fire and returned
dragging
a black cauldron of water behind him. He set the caul
dron on the burning logs and said, "Toss in the milkweed, Briar."

When the water came to a boil Lord Faul
pulled out some

stems
and dropped them on a flat stone. "Sup on
these," he said roughly.

The bitter milkweed curled my tongue and my
teeth went to powder over it. Still, I ate another stem, and another, weeping
with hunger as I chewed.

Lord Faul took the cauldron off the fire and
set it on the sand, roaring, "The time has come!"

I jumped up on one foot, grabbed my crutch,
and started for the entrance. Lord Faul whacked me flat with his tail and
wrapped it around me.

Swathed tight in scaly flesh, I could not
press my palms in prayer, nor could I kneel. "God, you formed me in my
mothers
womb; you know each hair upon my head. Surely I'm
more to you than the sparrows?"

As I prayed, Lord Faul dug in the sand mound,
his tail wrapped about me as roots around a stone. I readied myself. I knew I
must leap down his throat and be swallowed whole. If he cooked me in his fire
or tore me open with his teeth, I could not live to cut myself out of his
belly.

The dragon lowered his great head and, with a
soft breath,
blew the sand away. Four
dragon's eggs appeared. All were robins-
egg blue and gray flecked, like
the shell I'd seen in Demetra's cave. I ceased my petitions and took in the
sight.

The eggs jostled in the sand, showing some
life beneath. I felt such sudden joy at seeing them, understanding for the
first time the purpose of the mound. Lord Faul hovered over them, anxious, his
future there before him.

An egg cracked. The dragon growled, not in
anger as before, but like the purring of a cat. The first egg broke. After some
jostling, a snout poked through the crack, sniffing and snorting.

"Make ready,"
ordered Lord Faul, and quick he placed me by
the cauldron. "Be sure this brew is cooled," he said to me as
if I could do a thing to cool the water.

Another crack and the first pip
was
out. It crept onto the sand and flicked its red tongue
at its father. I laughed, though Faul shot me an angered look. The dragon was
nose to tail the length of me. The scales, all shining wet, were
more blue
than green and near translucent. The wings mashed
to its side were small. There would be no flight for a long while.

The pip scratched the sand with its claws and
cried, "Wah, wah," with a voice like a newborn lamb.

"He will be Chawl!" said Lord Faul.
"Mighty claw."
And so
the first of the four pips was named. After the
first, the hatchlings
came on quicker, two, three,
four
.
With the eggs all broken, the pips tripped about inside the pit.

Faul named each as they broke into the world,
and with the naming said its meaning. Second hatched was a female, Eetha— ruler
of the air. Then came a male, Kadmi—great fire. Last hatched was a female, Ore—precious one.

The males could be distinguished by their
colors: a darker green at the edges of the blue scales. The females were a
paler hue. All were golden-eyed excepting Ore, who was smaller than the rest
and blue-eyed.

"Is the water
cool?" asked Faul.

"Still hot."

"Add five thistles to it."

I did so then hobbled closer to the pit to
watch the brood. Chawl, first broken to the world, was frolicsome. Tumbling
across the pit, he crashed into Kadmi. Kadmi answered this with fire that
flared from his jaws like the spilling of a lantern. Just a bit of flame, but
from the snout of one so young, it was enough to warn me of his future ways.
Chawl, thus scorched, left his angry brother and began to bat his tail.

Eetha, ruler of the air, sought solitude.
When she found a private place in the far end of the pit, her sister, Ore, stumbled on behind. Eetha moved. Ore followed. She moved again. Ore came, nuzzling her
and giving her a lick. At last Eetha gave up and let her blue-eyed sister
nestle with her.

All this I watched as
Lord Faul hovered beside me. Then the
dragon
tapped my crutch and bid me test the water.

"Tepid," I called back.

"Scoop the broth into a broken
shell," he ordered. "Then let
the
pips have drink." Faul passed me a bit of shell, which was the
rough
shape of a great feast bowl.

I tipped the shell to dump the drink, but
Faul shoved me to the ground hard and dragged the shell to his pips.

"
Its
bitter," I warned. But the pips dipped their snouts in the
brew and drank. In years gone I'd seen young
calves suckle their
mother's milk and
watched Bram's wiggling piglets. All were anx
ious before the feed and
calmed when at the teats. But it was topsy-turvy with the pips. They'd seemed
innocent as lambkins before the feed, but the brew enraged them. Soon they were
growling and biting and clawing one another. Chawl bit Kadmi.

Kadmi spewed fire. Ore scratched Kadmi's
belly, opening a raw
wound. Eetha bit
Chawl's tail. Sand flew. Pips hissed and snarled.
I put my hand in to
stop them and Chawl bit my wrist.

"Ow!
Evil creatures!"
I screamed, cradling my wound.
"Why
give them a bitter drink when
there's sweet water just outside?"

"Bitterness is dragon's milk,"
growled Faul. "And it's your race that made it so." He flicked his
tail and snapped his jaws as if eating the very shadows that twitched along the
walls.

In the pit the pips settled down at last to
lick their wounds, and curled up to sleep. Pips a-slumber, I wrapped my wound
with the edge of Marn's cloak, crawled to a warm place near the fire, and gave
myself to rest.

I thought how the pips had been born on the
feast day of Saint Florian, who for his faith was set on fire and cast into the
River Enns with a rock tied to him. And I fell asleep weighted with the
strangeness of the world.

Knight's Folly

THE
next night
I
dreamed Kye rode his dark horse to the isle. Lifting me to his saddle, he rode
across the sea on a bridge of bones and feathers. On Wilde Island he sparked a flame and burned the bridge. Heat rose over the sea and my hand grew hot. I
awoke, found a burningstone glowing near my fingertips, and flicked it back
toward the fire with my talon.

It was my fifth morn on Dragon's Keep and
Lord Faul's purpose was clear now with the hatching of his brood. Mother dead,
I was to be their nursemaid. The task already had my arms and
back aching. I'd spent all of my fourth day here
cleaning piss and scat from the dragon's cave, plucking wild milkweed and
thistle,
and boiling bitter milk. And what was my reward for this? A
trout flung to me at dawn, another at eventide, and
all the
boiled milkweed I could bear to stomach.

My hair was tangled, my clothing torn and
filthy. And worst, I reeked of dragon stink. I longed for rescue, for knights
brave enough to come ashore and take me home. How I wanted to stand at
Dentsmore harbor when Father returned victorious

from
war with news of his heroic deeds and Kye's mastery
in battle.

I arose and brushed clumps of moss from my
person. I slept as a mockingbird in a nest of stolen forestry. Moss, rushes,
and
leaves were my bower. Lord Faul flicked
his tail and left the cave.
I knew my task. Searching in the half-light,
I scooped up pips'
scat with a bit of
broken shell. Three of the pips were good about
their leavings, burying
them in the sand as cats will do, but Chawl went wherever he had a mind to
squat and never buried his, so the piss and scat were everywhere.

The pips slept on as I cleaned. The piss was
bright orange and easy to see on the sand even in the morning's dark. I cleaned
the cave with care but I still spilled orange sand on my flesh and on my May
Day gown. The stain rose up the skirt like a stinking sun in a tattered sky.

Chore done, I hobbled to the mouth of the
cave, took my sorry gift outside, and dumped it in the woods. I was crutch-free
now, a bit of dragon skin sloughed from
Lord Faul's tail wrapped
around my ankle. It was sound and strong as
thick leather, and he had given it to me so I could toss my crutch and work all
the harder. My gait was graceful as a rooster's as I made my way to the river.

The falls sang nearby as I drank and ate the
trout left for me on the river stones. Lord Faul came up from behind.
"Come, Briar," he said. "It's time to harvest."

"What is this river called?" I
asked, coming to a stand.

"The trees call it Ashath," said
Faul.