The Cursed Towers (27 page)

Exultation flooded Isabeau. She was to fly by drag-onback, as Iseult had, and call the dragon-princess friend. Just as she was whispering her fervent thanks, the young dragon yawned widely and added:
If I
am not sleeping or bathing or playing with my brothers, I may come, for I find those of
humankind somewhat amusing. Your womb-sister was often quite diverting. Since she left I have
none to talk to except my brothers and, indeed, even a human is better company than they.
Isabeau nodded rather bemusedly, unable to help thinking the young dragon thought of her as a new sort of pet. The dragon gave a little scamper and turned to lead the way to the cavern mouths. Within was a broad hall that descended into the mountain in a sweeping spiral. It was just as Iseult had described—the shadowy ceiling shining with stars and moons and comets, the curving walls painted with trees and flowers and faeries and all the creatures of the forest. Below was the great cavern with its thick pillars and vaulted ceiling, all dark with flowing shadows.

Isabeau's breath caught in her throat as she saw seven great, bronze-backed dragons standing guard along its length. One was the dragon that had spoken to her at the beginning of the Great Stairway. He inclined his head, topaz-golden eyes glinting mockingly. The others ignored her, though their long, crested tails swayed back and forth and their eyes narrowed.

Torches flamed in brackets all along the hall's length, glimmering off dragon hide and the mound of treasure heaped on the dais at the far end. Asleep on the pile of tarnished coins and necklaces and cups and jewels was a huge old dragon. As large as a hill or a building, her humped back was lost in shadows, her thick tail writhing out through the treasure and down the hall. As her nostrils flared to exhale, a sulphurous wind rushed down toward Isabeau, blowing her hair away from her face and causing her shirt to flutter. Then when the massive old dragon breathed in, Isabeau felt her body tugged forward, her hair whipping over her face, obscuring her vision.

Step by slow step, Isabeau walked down the hall, her heart hammering, her palms sticky, her hair flowing first back, then forward, then back again. The closer she came to the sleeping queen-dragon, the more reluctant her steps grew. She could feel the brooding presence of the male dragons at her back, and once saw the vast shadow of a hooked and clawed wing sweep across the wall before her as one stretched out languorously. The shock of the movement caused every nerve in her body to jolt and tingle, and her legs almost gave way beneath her.

Only a stubborn pride kept her upright, though she had to press her hands to her chest to calm the painful banging of her heart.

At last she came to the foot of the steps and knelt down with her head bent. There was a long, weighty silence, the only sound the sonorous rushing of the queen-dragon's breath and the occasional rustle of the other dragons. The young princess Asrohc had curled up at the side of the hall and was cleaning her sharp teeth with her claws. Isabeau finally got up the courage to glance upwards. The queen-dragon was a dark bronze-green in color, the texture of her scales much rougher than those of her sons and daughter. Her head was the size of a cottage, her powerful forearms as thick as ancient trees, her claws nearly as long as Isabeau herself.

As Isabeau gazed at her wonderingly, a thick, wrinkled lid rolled back and she looked directly into the dragon's eye.

Again she felt a whirling dislocation, a loss of self. It seemed as if the dragon's eye held all the secrets of the universe. She saw life begin in a seed of fire which grew and spun like a wheel of flame. She saw time and space woven together in a gauzy sphere that hurtled past in a blur of galaxies and clusters of stars, her own world a tiny mote of dust in the universe's great eye. Within this fiery darkness, this whirling immensity, she was nothing, tinier and more insignificant than the larvae of mosquitoes clustering in a rain puddle.

Isabeau tried to cling to her sense of self, her sense of importance, but deep inside her was a lingering feeling of doubt which flowered and grew in the face of the immensity of the universe. A rush of tears came and she sobbed and covered her face, only to be reminded forcibly by the feel of her maimed hand against her skin. She clenched her fingers together, three on one hand, five on the other, raking the skin of her face with her nails, shaking her head from side to side.
Why, why?
Isabeau cried. Through the imperfect shelter of her fingers she again met the queen-dragon's gaze, her eyes dragged up against her will.

Isabeau saw a naked baby lying in the cleft of tree roots, half covered in dead leaves, her head covered with a fiery fuzz. She saw a little girl in an inn, pointing her finger so a pair of dice tumbled over one more time. She saw a young woman clamber out of a tree in the dark to unbind a black-winged man. She saw a red horse running along the crest of a green hill.

Isabeau's breath tore in her throat as she lived again her capture and torture, and her crippled hand flexed and clenched. She saw herself wandering through the forest, crazy with fever, saw the Celestine heal her under the stars in a broken tower. Faster and faster the scenes came, replaying her life before her eyes. For a few moments the visions came so fast Isabeau was dizzy and could make little sense of what she saw. An owl flying over a snowy landscape, a white lion racing below. Fire and ice devouring each other. Meghan's wrinkled face wet with tears. A red-tailed comet soaring far above the sea, waves rising to drown a dark forest. Feathers and fire, water and leaves and red-gold hair all swirled together, then suddenly Isabeau saw a woman with a grave face bending her head over the Key of the Coven which she wore at her breast. With a startled jolt, Isabeau recognized the maimed hand cradling the star within the circle and the intense blue eyes so full of sorrow and wisdom.

At the very moment of recognition the vision faded. Isabeau came back into her body, finding it tense and quivering, the stone beneath her knees hard and cold. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed. The smoky torches still flared, the male dragons still watched with slitted eyes, and Asrohc still groomed herself, her snaky blue tongue lovingly polishing the pale scales of her inner wrist. Shakily Isabeau thought,
Do ye mean I am to be Key bearer one day?

The queen-dragon shifted her weight on the mound of treasure, so coins and jewels went skipping away over the floor.

Do ye mean . . . ? Did I lose my fingers for some purpose? Did all this happen for some reason?

The queen-dragon half-closed her eyes.
Reason?
she said, the words so deep and ancient they were like thunder in Isabeau's mind.
Why must thou search for reasons? Thou thinkest of fate as a game
played by some faceless master, the whole universe subject to his will. Yet thou chosest thy path
freely and traveled it with set will.

So ye are saying it is my own fault I was tortured and maimed,
Isabeau said with cold dismay spreading through her.

The queen-dragon sighed, the blast of her exhalation blowing Isabeau's curls away from her tearstained face.
Why must thou look for faults and reasons? Thou chosest thine own path but not thy
destination. Fate is woven together of will and the force of circumstances. It is one thread spun of
many strands.

Isabeau nodded. She could see how that was so. Although she may have been impulsive in rescuing Lachlan from the Awl so many months ago, she had not closed the pilliwinkes upon her own hand. That had been Baron Yutta's choice and he had died as a consequence. She felt something relax within her, some tension she had grown so used to, she had no longer known it was there. She looked down at her scarred hand and said softly,
So I will never be healed, will I?

Thy soul-fabric will slowly heal,
the queen-dragon said.
It is not like flesh or cloth, once torn,
always torn. It is the stuff of the universe, like water or fire, without matter or shape. Thou wilt
heal.

Isabeau bent her head, showing she understood. Her thoughts flew back to the vision of herself cupping the Key of the Coven.

Perhaps,
the queen-dragon answered.

But the dragons see both ways along the thread o' time,
Isabeau protested. All the dragons shifted and murmured and Asrohc laughed, a terrifying sound. Involuntarily Isabeau remembered Jorge crouched beside a fire, the shadows dancing over his blind old face. She had just asked him if he could see the future, and he had answered in his gentle voice: "I can see future possibilities. The future is like a tangled skein o' wool waiting for the first strands to be drawn and spun into a thread."

So it is a future possibility that ye see,
Isabeau said thoughtfully.
That one day I will be Keybearer.
Excitement thrilled through her, ambition suddenly kindling in her heart. This time all the dragons laughed, and Isabeau crouched down against the flagstones, her pulses hammering.

Mockingly the queen-dragon sent a vision of Isabeau burning and blistering in a blast of dragon fire, then another of her shot through the heart with an arrow, falling from a castle battlement like a dying swan.
But. . .

The dragons see many things,
the queen-dragon said.
Why dost thou ask me things thou already
knows? I tire of thy impatient curiosity. My son tells me thou hast brought gifts. Show me!

Isabeau looked down and saw with dismay that she had dropped the branch of roses she had carried up the mountain so carefully. It lay crushed and broken at her feet. Horror filled her.
I'm sorry . . . I didn't. .

.

The queen-dragon reared up on her claws and sent a gust of fire shooting down the steps. Isabeau screamed and scrambled backward.

When she at last raised her face from the shelter of her arms, it was to see the roses all charred into ashes. She stared at the queen-dragon.

The blooming and dying of a rose is a mere passing of a moment to the dragons,
the queen said coldly.
Stars blooming and dying are of greater consequence to us.

But . . .
Isabeau said, again fearful, remembering that vision of herself burnt to cinders.
It was the bringing of the tithe that was of importance,
the dragon said.
Dost thou think I care for
roses, when I sleep on a bed of jewels?

Isabeau was so confused and afraid she could only stare at the great, dark hulk. After a moment, she scrabbled open her satchel and took out the artifacts with trembling fingers. One by one she lay them on the stone steps and heard the hissing breath of the dragons behind her. The queen-dragon rose and came ponderously down the steps, treasure tumbling in all directions, her tail sweeping aside gold chalices, jeweled brooches, tarnished crowns and scepters as if they were mere rubbish. Delicately she nudged and smelt the gifts, pushing the armband onto the tip of one claw, winding the pearls around another. She tossed the chalice in the air several times, then threw it nonchalantly over her back into the piles of treasure behind her. Then she licked the bloodstained dagger with her long, supple, sky-blue tongue and smiled a dragonish smile.

Well-chosen gifts indeed,
she purred. Carrying the dagger in her mouth, she climbed back up the steps and turned round and round on the mound before again settling down. She lay curled as comfortably as if her bed was of silk and velvets rather than hard and knobbly treasure, and licked the dagger again and again, her eyes slitted with pleasure.

Isabeau took a deep breath.
I
come bearing these gifts in homage to the wisdom and clear-sight of
the dragons,
she said, grateful Feld had made her repeat this speech so many times. She did not think she could have found words otherwise.
My clan has always revered the dragons, knowing they are
the greatest of all creatures, the most dangerous, the most powerful. I would very much like to
seek counsel with ye, Queen o' the Great Ones, and hope that the centuries of goodwill between
our clans will persist for centuries more.

The queen-dragon inclined her head, pausing in her slow savoring of the dagger for a moment.
They say I have Talent,
Isabeau said in a rush,
yet no one seems to ken what it is. I seem to have
many o' the minor Skills, like the ability o' summoning flame or moving things around, yet many a
skeelie or cunning man can do that. I canna fly, like my mother or Iseult; I canna charm beasts or
see the future, or whistle up the wind, or conjure illusions. I canna do anything o' significance!

There was a long pause and disappointment filled her. Then the queen-dragon tossed the knife in the air and caught it again.
To understand any living thing one must creep within and feel the beating of its
heart,
she said.
To understand the deeper secrets of the universe thou must feel its heart beat too.
The dragon turned her huge head and regarded Isa-beau steadily. Isabeau stared back. The queen's eye was a fiery sea, her slitted pupil the deepest, most unfathomable space. Isabeau heard the rush of blood through the chambers of her own heart, heard its steady rhythm like the pound of drums. She thought she discerned a deeper echo pounding in her breast, a long, slow beat that shook her with its unstoppable force.

Thou must know thyself before thou canst know the universe,
the queen-dragon said.
Thou must
always be searching and asking and answering; thou must listen to the heart of the world; thou
must listen to thine own heart. Thou must search out thine ancestors and listen to what they may
teach thee; thou must know thy history before thou canst know thy future.
Isabeau nodded.