Dragon's Keep (24 page)

1 waited in the cold outside the cave as long
as I could bear. When at last the dragons' breathing settled into sleep, I
tiptoed in. Lord Faul opened one eye as I placed the kindling on the coals. And
swift he had me in his claw.

"Where were you, Briar? The pips grow
cold!"

"
I.
. . fell in
the mud," I sputtered. He shook me once and
tossed me in the corner. I crawled, sore and freezing, to my moss
pile.
Flames licked the fresh wood. I curled as close to the fire as
I could without completely crawling in and
shivered as the steam
rose from my wet cloak.

Outside the dragons' lair trees wrestled in
the windstorm. I felt unsettled as the waving branches. I'd never heard the
tale of dragons saving men with fire, but this news had not undone me as much
as the idea that the dragons were aware of Merlins prophecy. Kye had spoken of
it and his eyes were full of wonder as he told me the dream, yet even Kye s own
father wore a claw cut from the she-dragon to show his victory over her as men
had done in the dragon wars. Knowing men did this, what dragon
would cut off
his own
claw for the sake of peace? And even if a
dragon made such a sacrifice,
what king would toss his broken sword
to a dragons
feet when year on year the beasts had set fire
to his villages and feasted on his countrymen? No, Lord Faul was
right
in this: The prophecy was an old wizard's parting dream and nothing more.

I turned on my side and listened to the wind
mourn outside the cave. If reading the heavens was anything like translating
Latin, I could forgive Merlin for misconstruing the stars. It may be the
heavenly script is written in some unknown celestial

tongue
. Or God writes from right to left, and the wizard
read the sky from left to right.

Shivering, I watched the steam rising from my
damp gown and worked to swallow down the dread rising up my throat. If Merlin's
prophecy was wrong concerning dragons, how had he misread my fate?

Strange Treasure

The winter I
turned
seventeen
I came to think more and
more
of myself as Briar. Lord Faul had named me well, for I was
more the
leavings of a princess now than the stout of her. Knowing he planned to leave
the isle when the pips were strong enough to fly made me work all the harder on
my boat, but my hours in the hills were shortened. By fall's end, I'd harvested
the last of the wild milkweed and thistle.

Faul had me cook the batches down to
a bitter
syrup. This, mixed with river water, was to be the
pip's winter drink. Soon snow covered my harvest hill and coated the woods all
round till nothing but the waterfall would speak. Harvesting done, I thought
myself in more danger than ever, but Faul gave me more
tasks, and I worked hard to prove my usefulness, hoping to delay
my
death.

How strange the island seemed in winter, when
a somber
magic came over the world. Ice
formed in great wing shapes along
the edges of the waterfall, and early
in the day, when the sun
shone down, the
ice glittered like great angel wings clinging to the

black
cliff rocks. I saw this one
morning as I shivered on the shore
and
broke a hole in the ice to fill a dragon shell with water.

Struggling under the water's weight, I
carried the shell to the
cave. But before I
set it on the floor, I tripped and broke the shell.
Freezing water
splashed across Chawl's back. He leaped up with an angry hiss, for it's an
insult to wet a dragon. I stood, half
drenched
myself, and stammered, there being no words like
sorry
or
forgive
me
in DragonTongue.

Angry at the insult to his pip, Lord Faul
stomped over and
lifted his great foot to
crush me. I cowered at the edge of the cave
as Faul opened his black
talons, his naked green foot larger than I was. Then with a tumble and a
stumble Eetha and Kadmi rushed to me like scale-clad soldiers.

"Spare her!" Eetha cried in
DragonTongue. "She cannot help her blood! Mind her pretty part!"

Kadmi bravely grabbed my arm and showed my
talon to his
father. Lord Faul spilled
impassioned fire to the roof, then turned
and quit the den. Beyond the
booming of the waterfall I heard bellowing and crashing that was like the
thunder. The roars and
crashes made my flesh
sweat, for here was Lord Faul's anger fully
exposed. I knew beyond doubt
that without my claw and my caring for the pips, he would have had me between
his teeth long before. And my screams and pleadings would have been to him a
pleasure song.

I sucked in a shuddering breath and picked up
the broken shell as the pips gathered round to comfort their wet sibling. Then
I poked my head outside and saw the dragon's tail disappear behind the
waterfall. Soon Faul was out again, treading

through
the snow with a large copper pot to replace the shell
I'd broken. My heart quickened. Was this where he hid his treasure? I vanished
back inside the cave before he caught me looking on.

Late on that same day Lord Faul flew off to
hunt. While the pips were curled up tail to snout and snoring, I quit the cave
and headed for the waterfall.

A light snow laced the ground. Dragging a
fallen branch behind me, I managed to cover my tracks to the waterfall. The
rocks were icy where I entered the hidden cave behind the falls, and once
inside, the dark accosted me, but a little ray of sun cut through the water as
a knife cuts through butter, and I let that slash of sun guide my way.

The cave was filled with all manner of
things, and copper pots were the least of it. In the very middle was a pile of
gold, which sank in at the top, as if it had been lain upon. And coming
closer, I saw the shape of Lord Faul there. Marn had told me once that dragons
loved to sleep upon their gold and I'd not be
lieved
her, but here was the impression of his leg, a curl where his
tail had
been, and the gold held his bitter smell.

Such a treasure trove!
Queen Evaine's scepter must be here. I
looked
about and dug into the mound, stopping once to hold a coin in my little slice
of light. How it shone like a torn piece of sun in my dirty hand. Such riches
I'd never seen before even in our castle strong room. Here was the gold of
kingdoms upon kingdoms, and all of it hidden in a cave. I dropped the coin with
a clink, and the pile shifted where I'd been digging. More coins tumbled down,
covering my feet till I stood like a small tree that

was
rooted in riches. No scepter still. It must be in
another hiding place. I stepped from the coins and built up the pile again,
lest the dragon know I'd come.

Behind the gold was a smaller mound of
jewels. Even in the dim light, the jewels glittered with their own brightness.
Emeralds shone the green of dewy leaves. Rubies were tossed about like blood
after a battle.
Oh,
and there were sapphires, too, and
diamonds cast over all like shatter-glass.

I blinked against the
jewels. Belts, bracelets, necklaces, and
crowns
lay about like so much fodder, but my little ray of light brought me to the
ring. The gold ring was set with a single sapphire. It was more beautiful than
all the jewels in all the room,
yet it was
too large for a woman's hand. It would have slipped off
my mother's
finger, and off any of mine but one.

Here I stole a
moment,
my heart pounding and my breath
coming on
like a runner's as I did what I never should have done. Slow and with a single
twist I slipped the ring over my claw and
held it in the light. It shone
like a caught river dancing over a gnarled branch. And the pity of its beauty
encircling my claw sickened me. I tore it off, threw it aside, and ran.

I would have rushed from the cave, but a
strange glint coming from a smaller chamber made me pull back. The glint was
not from gold or jewels, but from a tumble of armor. I set my jaw. Here was the
room made by my mother and the queens and
kings
before her. All hungry for revenge, for the dragon's treasure,
and the
Pendragon scepter that would prove our royal
lineage,
they'd sent their knights and slayers out year on year to die on

Dragon's Keep.
And the dragon knew it, for as I stepped into the
alcove I saw the scepter hanging high above the stone arch at the entry.

I'd read the description of the scepter in
Evaine's annals and Mother had used her words to weave a likeness of it on her
tap
estry, so I knew this was the very
scepter Evaine had taken from
her father, King Uther Pendragon, six
hundred years ago. The golden staff was the length of a man's forearm, and atop
was a carved dragon with diamond teeth and ruby eyes.

The dragon had hung it like a teasing poppet
just out of reach of the dead knights' armor, which was piled nearly to the
ceiling. The armor was tossed one upon the other in an easy manner, as if each
were no more than a clamshell with all the meat sucked out. All were empty even
of their bones. So the armor was just the metal leavings of the dragon's feast.

The names of the knights I'd known washed
over me then.
Sir Robert, who more than once bounced me on
his knee as he sang a sour-noted tune.
Sir Broadon, blond as a woman,
long as a poker, and seeming brittle, but always one to laugh at his own jokes.
And Sir Kimball, whose voice was dry as summer wind.
But it was the sight of Lord Brodericks herb pouch lying at my feet that hurt
the most. I fell to the floor and ran my hand along the letter
B
his
lady had embroidered there in green. My throat ached. Tears warmed my cheeks. I
hated Mother for sending
Niles
's father here, the best of all our knights. The
pouch smelled
of sweat and vervain as I pressed my blistered hand
against the simple lettering. How proud he'd been marching off to meet the

dragon
, and how full of love his eyes
were when he looked on his
lady the last
time.

Tugging the dusty drawstring, I spilled
vervain onto my lap, the small blue flowers dried now and the leaves curled.
Wolf's bane seeds tumbled after, along with an ink bottle. I shoved the herbs
back in the pouch along with the bottle and slid the pouch into the inner
pocket of my cloak, where it kept company with my round mirror.

Lord Broderick was a fine poet and had no
doubt brought
this ink to write a verse to
his lady, but the poem went down with
him, and the waxen seal atop the
bottle had never been broken.

Water roared outside
the cave entrance. Already I'd taken too
long
behind the falls. I must away before Lord Faul returned.
Soon I was clinging to the slick wall behind the
falls, then seeing
no one about, I rushed outside, took up the branch
I'd left, and
walking backward, sweeping
all trace of footprints from the snow
until I reached the pips' cave.

At twilight and under a half-moon I hid the
ink bottle in the hollow of an ancient willow tree and made three quills from
herring gull feathers. After so many months alone I'd grown sick with longing
to speak to another human soul. This I could not do so I panged to write as a
beggar pangs for bread.

It took some weeks before I found a place to
pen my words, though the answer was scattered all about the dragons' den. The
pips were growing, and thus they were molting as lizards and other creatures of
their kind do. With the exception of Ore each pip was already twice my length
in body, and longer than that if

tails
should be included in the measure. From morn to
eventide the pips were scratching and stripping off their scales, and since I
was nurse, housekeeper, and scullery maid, it was my duty to take the sloughed
skins from the cave.

I took them. Ah, did
I
!
They were like gold to me. Translucent, they shimmered blue-green like a strip
of sky. The scales were the size of my two hands open and placed together, and
though they had a bitter stink about them, they were strong and supple as
vellum. Arms full, I raced to my hollow tree before Lord Faul returned from his
hunt, and stuffed the skins inside.

I stood upright and smiled to myself, the sun
on my back and the sound of the woodlark chirping above the roar of the
waterfall. Then all about the stately tree, I gathered a posy of crocuses from
the snowy ground to celebrate my victory. Who would have thought a princess
would stoop to hoard dragon skin? And wouldn't
all the
kingdom wonder at a girl who was glad to write her thoughts on a dragon's back?

Between my serving chores and stolen hours
working on the
boat, I could spend but
little time writing on the skins I'd stitched
together, but the book
that grew from my days of silence and lonesomeness was as strange as the scales
it was written on.

In the secret hollow of the tree I penned in
the story of Kye. How I met him at the pier. The strange soft words between us,
that came even from the first. The dragon's egg he showed me hidden in the
beach cave. I lettered my love for him, but I could not write about what
happened when he saved me from the wolves, not even on the dragon's skin.
Instead I wrote of my ab-