Dragon's Keep (28 page)

We toiled against the
rising water, while Kadmi struggled to
free
himself from the weight of the pine tree. Digging hard, back bent, hands
flailing, I saw all in a moment how Kit's eyes grew wide at the sight of my
naked hand. The blue-green scales of my
dragon's
claw were shining in the water, and my long black talon
was blotched
with river mud.

"Dig!" screamed Eetha, and we went
to work again. Kit did not speak a word of condemnation but dug all the harder
beside me. How I loved her for that.

Working as one, Kit and I nearly freed
Kadmi's foreleg. Kadmi raised his snout, trying hard to lift his head higher,
bur now the water was in his mouth. He blew out.
Heaved in a
choking breath.
Blew out again.

"Faster!" shouted Faul. And in his
haste to free Kadmi, he knocked Ore into the water. Over the logs she washed.

"Ah, God!"
I cried. "The wee one cannot swim!"

Swift, Kit dived in the water after Ore. She gave no more thought for herself than she had the day she'd leaped into the moat
to save the robin. And together they tumbled down the rushing river.
"Kit!" I screamed. "Ore!" But I could not go after them. My
hands were deep in mud, clawing like a dog to save Kadmi. Now his head was
underwater, but life was in his eyes.

I was still digging beside Kadmi's golden
chest when I saw him die. Faul lifted his head and screamed, "Kadmi!"

Yellow flames hissed in the rain, and above
us, gray steam rose. I screamed beside the dragons, my throat burning as theirs
did, though no fire came.

In our haste to find Ore and Kit we left
Kadmi's body in the water and sped along the riverbank. Drenched in muck I ran
mile on mile, my heart pounding, my breath coming in gulps.

Racing with the
dragons, my eyes were fixed upon the river, which was now a stranger to me. The
storm had turned the glassy
water of our
sweet Ashath into a brown and heaving thing filled with swirling branches, dead
rabbits, squirrels, and in one place, a drowned fawn.

Farther down the Ashath Faul shouted,
"There!" and I saw Ore caught against a row of rocks in the tumbling
water. We could not see if she was dead. Faul and I waded in, Chawl and Eetha
behind. Lord Faul stooped and gathered Ore to himself. Gashed and bloody, she
moaned, her head rolling back against her fathers shoulder.

"Alive!" I
screamed to the others. Ah, but there was loss here.
In the place where Ore had lain, I saw what had kept
her from drowning. Not river stones or branches wedged beneath but Kit.

Her death came over me in a roaring silence.
All sound was the river, all movement the water. Faul took up Kit and laid her
on the ground. I was still in the river. Anon, it
was Chawl brought me to shore and set me beside her. There was a myrtle leaf in
Kit's
hair. Rain poured over us and the wind howled all around. I kissed
her stone-cold cheek and took her in my arms.

The sky was clear the next day, but the wind
still blew strong
with the smell of storm
on it. Gusts swept across our backs as we
dug two graves on the high
hill. A large hole at the very
top,
and farther down,
a smaller one.

Faul laid Kadmi in the deep pit. Stepping
back, he lit him with his fire. Chawl, Eetha, and Ore joined in till Kadmi was
ablaze in yellow flames.

Long did he burn, and long did Faul and the
pips send more fire on him, their grief being more like burning rage than
sorrow since for their lives they could not cry. Standing beside the pips, I
added to the roar, screaming high and piercing like a kestrel to its kill. Wind
drove the flames higher. And the smoke tumbled in waves above our heads.

When Kadmi was full-burned we covered him
with soil, the heat of his bones making the very earth hiss and steam. Then the
dragons turned and followed me to the smaller grave. I stood over Kit, who lay
sweet as sleep in the ground. Even the grave could not dim Kit's brightness,
her damp hair lacing over her cheek, her face pale against the brown earth. She
looked like a summer bloom fallen from its stem yet with all the petals kept.

I wished I could scream for Kit as I'd done
for Kadmi. But the sorrow that impaled my heart could never be undone with
screaming. Chawl started a blue flare but I held up my hand. 1
need only give my say and all would spill their
fire on her. But 1
couldn't say farewell with fire. It would have killed
me sure to watch Kit burn, so against those gathered there, I went on with the
service.

With Father
s
golden cross held high above Kit's grave I sang,
"His Banner Is Love,"
and said the releasing prayer, which ends
with
"and to bright Heaven I'll follow Thee."

From my threadbare cloak
I unclasped Kit's silver brooch and
saying,
"Omnia vincit amor," I placed it on her sodden chest.

"What is the meaning?" asked Eetha.
Chawl flicked her with his tail for asking so.

I answered, "Love conquers all."

Lord Faul shivered with the words, his scales
rattling above the grave like dried leaves in the wind.

_{Lord Faul}

The rain ceased
and the river fell. When the water came
down and was thigh deep just past the fallen
trees, we set to work
digging out the pines. This we did in silence,
having no heart for the task. All dug together, careful to step around the
place where Kadmi died, and when we cleared the fallen pines, the water rushed
past in a great sigh.

Next we cleaned out the den. The flood had
filled it to the very top, leaving ring on ring of mud across the stones. We
shiv
ered with the damp as we scraped away
the rings with sticks, and
swept the thick mud from the floor with
cypress brooms.

At day's end, cold and tired, we burned our
brooms. Chawl lit a fire, and seeing his father worn from work, left the cave
to hunt. Some time after, he returned with trout and tossed each of us a fish.
All ate but Faul, who turned away to sleep.

The rivers cold had marked us, every one.
We'd spent too many hours clearing the trees from the water, and it took a roaring
fire to touch the chill. I lay shivering, listening to Lord Faul

as
he slept. The rattle of his
breathing was like the clacking bones
our
jester waved on All Hallows' Eve to frighten off the dead.

I'd not heard him breathe this way before and
it troubled me,
so I lay half awake while
the others slept. Eyes closed, I saw the
golden fire through my eyelids
and in the glow the very image of Kit. In her bright company at last, I fell
asleep.

Near dawn Eetha shook me
awake. "We must go to your thisde
hill,"
she said. "Father's breath is rough. He needs bitter milk."

I sat up, hearing for myself that his
breathing had worsened.
Little Magda's
breathing had been that rough when she'd suffered
from the croup. Marn
had treated her with a mustard plaster. Wild mustard grew on the hill; I would
garner some.

A soft red light gowned the woods outside
where I climbed on Eetha's back. Unused to my weight, she pumped her wings hard
as she skimmed above the treetops, dipping too low now and again. We reached
the hill and she skidded down and landed with a thud, which sent me headlong
into the thistle.

"Oof!" I cried. But Eetha stood up
and shook herself. "Pluck," she said.
"And
swift!"

The thistle stalks were still green, and the
milkweed was in purple bloom. I knew the dragons liked it better later in the
season when the plants were drier, but I gathered what I could in the rising
sun, ignoring that the thistles scratched and cut my palms. Eetha pulled
alongside me in a patch where I'd never known another's help.

When the piles of
milkweed and thistle were both waist high,
I
climbed the hill to harvest mustard.

"No time for flowers," called Eetha
with contempt.

"Wild mustard holds a cure for chest
ailment."

Eetha fluttered her wings. "Hurry, then,
Briar."

I pulled great handfuls of the mustard
plants. I would cure Lord Faul. I was Rose and Briar.
Princess
and dragons child.
I'd lost one father. I would not lose another. Then
Eetha took our
morning's harvest in her
claws, and we flew back over the green
hills.

I could hear Lord Faul's rough breathing as
we entered the cave. Behind his enormous back Chawl and Ore
were
digging
.

"Bring another stone from the
fire!" called Chawl. Eetha dropped her bundles and brought Chawl a
burningstone. Digging a small hole, he placed it behind Faul's back.

I'd not seen burningstones placed in a half
circle like that since Faul and I tended the pips' nest before their hatching
day.

"Nothing warms him," said Chawl.
"His front is to the fire and we've pitted hot stones behind him as he
told us to, but feel his scales."

Eetha ran the soft upper part of her claw
over her father's
shoulder. "Briar
will heal him with fresh bitter milk," she said, a
mix of hope and
fear in her
eyes.

Already I was throwing thistles in the pot.
And while I
waited for the brew to boil, I
gathered all the seeds from the mus
tard plants. So tiny and so few! And
I needed flour to make a paste for a poultice as I'd seen Marn do. No flour
here. What then? I crushed the seeds between two stones then added dirt,
dampening it with my spit to make a paste. Demetra had used

mustard
on my claw. The burning paste could heal or harm. My
intent was healing.

Lord Faul opened his eyes. "Come by me,
pips," he said in a rasping voice. The pips gathered by him as I mixed the
mustard plaster.

"Have you felt the stirrings yet?"
he asked.

"Aye," said Chawl.
"A strange itching in my wings."

"That's the calling," said Faul.
"Soon you'll fly south to meet your fellows."

"Our kith," said Eetha. "I've
wanted to go there so long, but with Kadmi drowned and—"

"Go still." Faul
coughed,
the rough and rattle of great fists banging down a door. He wheezed another
breath. "You have to go. Promise me."

"You'll take us there," said Chawl,
nodding.

"You'll find your
way." Faul closed his eyes.

I stepped up.
"Here is hot mustard paste to ease your cough."

"Hot?" said Lord
Faul.
"It can be nothing to a
dragon's fire."

"Aye, you're right there." It was
good to hear him boasting.
With stinging
nose and watering eyes I coated his neck and chest,
my own hands burning as I spread it. "The
heat will grow," I said.
Then wiping my hands on the sandy floor, I
went back to the cooking pot.

"Thistle milk will be ready soon,
Father," said Eetha. "The bitter taste will restore your guile, and
your fire will come on strong again."

"No," said Faul, "this death
has stolen my fire."

My breath caught in my throat. I dropped my
stirring stick and went to Faul. "Don't let Kadmi's death take away your
will to live," I said. "You still have your daughters and a
son."

"It's not only Kadmi's death that haunts
me," said Faul. His slit eyes opened and he looked so long on me I felt a
coldness wrap around my bones.

"The girl who gave her
life for Ore."
He heaved a
breath. The sound of his coughing echoed in the cave. "Never did 1 think .
. ." He closed his eyes. I leaned my head against his side and put my
clawed hand on his great neck.

"Kit never thought of
herself
when a fellow creature was in trouble." I told him then of Kit's love for
wild creatures. How she'd thrown herself in the moat to save a robin.

Faul shuddered and I felt the tremble on my
hand. Under his breath he said, "How can I not be changed by this?"

And then I saw them: the shining drops so small
and clear that had chilled Lord Faul to the core and doused his inner fire.

"Don't cry, Father!" I begged, and
as the pips saw the tears
they joined me
pleading, "Don't cry, Father! Stop now! It will kill
you!

More tears rolled down Faul's blue-green flesh
and puddled in the sand beside his talons.

_{Voice in the
Falls}

The
pips dug
A
grave
beside Kadmi's and set Lord Faul
ablaze.
The flames burned bright all that
day and into the deep of night. We stayed beside the dragon's death-fire,
lifting our screams to the sky, stinging heat and bitter smoke shawling the
moon gray. At dawn we filled the pit until the grave became a mound of steaming
sod. I laid my father's cross atop then sat in the long wild grass, facing
clouds and sun. Covered in dirt and smoke, I was too worn to walk back to the
cave. My joints ached; my throat was parched and sore. I was like Job in his
grieving pit, having lost all that mattered to me in life and seeing nothing
but sickness and sores ahead. Looking out over the sea, the words of Saint
Columba came as if on the wind whispering.

Day of thick clouds
and voices,
Of
mighty thundering, A day of narrow anguish
And bitter sorrowing.