Dragon's Keep (5 page)

Demetra clapped her
h
ads and a serving woman came from
one of the tunnels at the back of the cave. Her clothes
were ragged, her golden hair pulled back into a braid. Mother started when she
saw her, but the woman did not notice, for she kept her eyes on the floor.

"Fetch tea," Demetra said.

The servant fled down the tunnel and returned
with a tray of
steaming mugs. I watched her
pass Mother a cup. Her hands were
red and the tips of her slender
fingers cracked. Beautiful hands
once, I
could see, but they had been hard worked. She gazed up at
Mother, her
brown eyes pleading, Mothers going soft, then hard in turns. It was clear from
that one look they knew each other.

All seemed inside out.
The
black night a place of safety, this warm cave full of danger.

"Serve the princess, Ali," ordered
Demetra. Ali handed me a tea that was sweet to sip but bitter going down. Then
she refilled Demetra's cup, and flitted back down another tunnel.

"You took long enough to bring
her," said Demetra.

"We left only today," I said.

Demetra snorted.

"I had some hope the village healers
..." Mother took a sip
of tea. "I
knew she must be ready to take your cure. I'm sure she's
strong enough
to face it now and live."

Strong enough for what?
"Mother," I said through gritted teeth,
"we have our pilgrimage to make."

Demetra peered at me,
like one about to gut a fish. She poked
the
fire, sending sparks from the burningstone. "Who says there's a cure for
her?"

"There must be," said Mother.

My gloved hands felt cold around the steaming
mug. And the tea quaked below the rim.

"Some things are sealed in their
making," said Demetra.

Mother stood up to her full height. "Not
this," said Mother, her voice low and ominous. "The girl is innocent.
Did you think I would have drunk the slime from that giant egg if I'd known
what lay within?"

Giant egg?
I'd never heard of this. The cave walls begin to
swim. "Saint Monica healed Mother's womb," I said through chattering
teeth.

Demetra laughed. "So that's what you
told the girl, eh? Well, saints or slimy potions, you said you'd do anything to
conceive."

"But the egg—"

"You sought a child and won one."

Mother grabbed my upper arm and pulled me
closer to the hag. "Look at her, Demetra," said Mother, her words
coming out in gulps like one drowning. "She's a beauty, well schooled,
pure, and sweet." Mother tightened her grip. "She'll be the twenty-first
queen." I saw by the lift of Demetras brow that she heard Mother's
uncertainty.

I struggled to pull away, but Mother had both
arms about my waist and held me before her as if I were her puppet. Demetra
reached out and ran her gnarled fingers through my hair. "I
know Merlin's prophecy," she said. "But
the time may not be ripe
with England in civil war—"

"Merlin saw her ending war."

I strained against Mother's grip, the three
of us so close I

could
smell Demetra's fetid breath.
At last I pulled free and the two
faced
each other.

Demetra licked her lips. "Wizard
words," she snapped. "I don't see his vision playing out with the
girl's witch mark."

Witch mark? She knew? I had to leave now! But
I couldn't move.

Mother swayed. "How do you know what
ails the child?"

"I knew there would be some mark on her
from the cure you took. Could it be . . . hiding on her hand?" She tipped
her head and smiled.

Slowly I backed toward the entrance, but
before I could escape, Demetra's moonstruck eye caught me in a milky stare. I
would run when she looked down.

"Mayhap,"
mused
the hag, "you should try for another girl.
A perfect one
without a mark to threaten her power."

I stepped back once and twice, as if walking
through thick snow.

"No!" shouted Mother.
"Rosalind's
the one.
The only hope we have. There's but one thing
in the way, and we've come to be rid of it by God's power or by potion!"

"Well, not by God's power here."
Demetra laughed.
"But a potion, sure.
That or a good sharp knife."
Saying this, she unsheathed
her blade.

I screamed and raced outside.

A rush of hot wind hit my face as I flung
myself forward. Heart beating, blood rushing, feet pounding, I ran into the
night not caring where.

"Stop, Rosalind!" called Mother.

Feet flying over root and stone, I rushed
down the winding path, with Mother and Demetra in pursuit.

"Come back!" called Mother.
"You'll catch your death!" But I thought that death was not chasing
me as hotly as those two.

I took a sharp turn, nearly falling as I ran.
Fearing that they'd catch me on the path, I dove behind a blackberry bush and
watched them rush by, Mother's cloak shining in the moon and Demetra's gray
hair flying out behind her like moss caught in a river.

Twigs scratched my
cheeks and arms as I crawled deeper into
the
underbrush. The smell of sage filled my nose, mingled with the dust my hands
and knees stirred up.

"Find her," called Demetra from
farther down the path. "She's a tender girl and there's a hot north wind
a-blow tonight from Dragon's Keep."

Hot north wind, a dragon sign. I was afraid
then. Still I did not call out to Mother, for in her wake ran Demetra, and in
her hand I'd seen the knife.

The
Kiss

Deep in the night
a noise awakened me.
"Mother?"
I whispered, though I knew she was back in Demetras cave by now.
A beating sound, coming from the starry sky.
I sat up,
gripped the stunted tree, and listened. There it was: a strong dull sound like
that of Marn thumping a rug with a stick. Then darkness sped between me and the
moon.

"Just an owl," I said for comfort.
But the smell in the air told me otherwise.
Burning leather,
putrid flesh, rusting metal.
A smell somehow familiar.

The dragon.

Overhead I saw him.
Power.
Muscle.
Red-tipped wings
wide
as the church wall. His underside
was gold.
His back and wings blue-green.
I was afraid
but could not turn away.

Beat. Beat. The wings shook out their shadows
like dust from old carpets.

In the foothills below sheep gathered on the
grass like small clouds clustering in a darkened sky. The beast circled over
them. Where was the shepherd now?

Oh, run. Run. Don't let the dragon catch you!
My claw throbbed in time with the flapping wings as it had the day the dragon
killed our Magda. I clenched my teeth, willing my mar to pound to another time,
but it fell into the rhythm of the giant wings like a soldier to a marching
drum.

Run, sheep!

They scattered beneath him. Then I saw the
shepherd rushing down the hill. Two beats more and the dragon swooped down,
caught the shepherd in his claws, and flew skyward again.

I could hear the poor man screaming as the
dragon flew closer to the cliff where I hid and landed on a broad, flat stone
not more than sixty paces from me. I shuddered. The beast was thirty feet long
from snout to rump, and his thrashing tail was nigh on thirty feet as well.

The captive man screamed and flailed,
imprisoned in the dragon's claws. And I saw the sharp, encircling talons
drawing blood against his cloak.

The muscles in my legs twitched. I longed to
run, but the
beast blocked the way before
me and the cliff edge was just be
hind. All I could do was
wait
, shiver, hide behind my slender sapling, and hope the
dragon would not notice me.

The dragon held the man out on the tips of
his talons, blew a stream of fire at him till he was cooked, then plunged the
dead man into his mouth. I closed my eyes, sickened, and pressed my hands to my
ears. Still I could not shut out the sounds of the dragon's teeth crunching the
shepherd's bones.

Finished with his feast, the dragon licked
his jaws, looked about, and sniffed. I hunched up close to my small spruce
tree.

"Rosalind!" My morlicr's voice came
from somewhere
up mountain
. The dragon turned and
pricked up his ears.

"Rosalind! Come
back!"

He lifted his head higher.

"Rosie! Oh, Rosie!
Answer me!"

Slowly the
dragons
wings unfurled. He would follow her call
and do to her what he'd done to the shepherd!

I leaped from my hiding place.
"Dragon."

He turned. I could see his nostrils flaring,
green about and red within.

Blood pounded in my ears.

I searched the moonlit ground for a weapon:
bushes, slender grass, pebbles.
Nothing.

The dragons tongue lashed out like a devil's
whip. He lowered his head, saying, "Sweet morsel." Dragons know many
human languages, being sharp-witted and slit-tongued, so the words did not
surprise me. But the voice did: a voice like stones
thrown into a river, deep and clear and sharp all at the same time.
I
could tell by the tone the dragon was female.

She inched closer,
belly to the ground like a stalking cat. The
gold of her underside was the color of my gloves. Her eyes were large
as lanterns, slit with yellow fire. These were the
soft
spots; all
else was scaly armor.

"I am not afraid," I said, my heart
thrusting in my ribs. The dragon stopped and peered at me. This was not what
she was used to hearing, nor what I'd meant to say.

The dragon blinked and seemed to smile.

"You're nothing but a winged
lizard!" I shouted. "It's sure you sleep on a flat rock in the sun
and your brains are all in your gut!

The dragon's mouth
opened,
her dagger teeth still red with the shepherd's blood. "The morsel has no
fat," she said. "But I see she has a fire in her belly." Then
lifting her head, the dragon breathed flames into the sky. I felt the heat
across my face and chest. The firelight shone like a thousand bluebells in a
starry field. I swallowed hard, my tongue swelling in my mouth.

She bent closer, smoke swirling about her
head. Lifting her forearm, her five-taloned claw gleaming black and washed in
moonlight, she paused, then lowered it again. Her
eyes had fallen
on my gloves.

"Gold," she whispered.

Quick I tore them off and tossed them at her
feet. The glittering threads of my gloves distracting her, I seized the
moment, thrust out my hand, and scratched her right eye with my talon.

She roared, rearing back, and the ground
shook beneath her. I ran to the right. She caught me in her claws, like a wee
mouse to a cat. I worked to breathe in her grip, and with every gasp my chest
was shot with pain.

Now we were face to
face. Drops of blood pearled along the
gash beneath her eye. The smells of blood and burnt flesh
filled my
nose, and
I felt as helpless as a worm in a robin's claw. I thrust my
arm out again to make a second wound, but I was too
far back.

Some trance shrouded the dragon as she stared
at my naked hand: my scaly blue-green claw, the sharp black talon still wet

with
her blood. A shiver raced
across her back and made the dry
sound of
rustling leaves.

Afraid to move, I kept my hand stretched out.

The dragon was so still that a yarrow moth
lit upon her head and stayed there opening and closing its wings in the
moonlight.

I felt a calming come
over me then, a peace down to my core.
And
though she had me in her grasp and I could not kneel or
cross myself as I'd been taught, I loosed my soul to meet my end.
In
a twinkling, with a shift of soul, I was prepared to wheel upward into heaven.
But I wasn't ready for what happened next.

The dragon's warm wet tongue thrust out and
wrapped about my arm. It twisted like a serpent, the slit ending at my fingertips.
She held her tongue there, licking my talon as my blood chased through my
veins. My claw had never been so gently touched.

I swayed, and I heard a rushing in my ears as
if the sky had sent a river down.

At last the bright red tongue unfurled and
slipped into her mouth. Letting go her hold, she set me down, uprooted my small
tree, and flew over the cliff's edge. I
watched her drop the sapling
to the valley floor below as she sped
across the sky. The clouds blushed in her approach, and darkened again as she
passed, like tapestry near a wavering candle.

I was left standing, my arm still
outstretched against an invisible foe. A cool breeze played about my flesh, my
claw still damp from the dragon's kiss.