The Mirror of Fate (3 page)

The dragon drew a deep, ponderous breath. Her head, nearly as large as my entire body, hung remorsefully from her huge shoulders. Even her wings drooped sadly, as did one of her blue, bannerlike ears. The other ear, as always, stuck straight out from the side of her head—looking less like an ear than a misplaced horn.

Hallia, seeing my angry expression, moved protectively to the dragon’s side. She placed her hand on the end of the protruding ear. “Gwynnia’s sorry, can’t you see? She didn’t mean any harm.”

The dragon scrunched her nose and gave a deep, throaty whimper.

Hallia peered into her orange, triangular eyes. “She’s only just learned to fly. Her landings are still a little clumsy.”

“Little clumsy!” I fumed. “She might have killed me!”

I paced over to my staff, lying on the grass, and brandished it before the dragon’s face. “You’re as bad as a drunken giant. No, worse! At least he’d pass out eventually. You just keep getting bigger and clumsier by the day.”

Gwynnia’s eyes, glowing like lava, narrowed slightly. From deep within her chest, a rumble gathered, swelling steadily. The dragon suddenly stiffened and cocked her head, as if puzzled by the sound. Then, as the rumble faded away, she opened her gargantuan, teeth-studded jaws in a prolonged yawn.

“Be glad she hasn’t learned yet how to breathe fire,” cautioned Hallia. Quickly, she added, “Though I’m sure she’d never use it on a friend.” She scratched the edge of the rebellious ear. “Would you, Gwynnia?”

The dragon gave a loud snort. Then, from the other end of the meadow, the barbed end of her tail lifted, curled, and moved swiftly closer. With the grace of a butterfly, the remotest tip of the tail alighted on Hallia’s shoulder. There it rested, purple scales upon purple cloth, squeezing her gently.

Brushing some of the mud from my tunic, I gave an exasperated sigh. “It’s hard to stay angry at either of you for long.” I gazed into one of the dragon’s bright eyes. “Forgive me, will you? I forgot—just for a moment—that you’re never far from Hallia’s side.”

The young woman turned toward me. “For just a moment,” she said softly, “I, too, forgot.”

I nodded sadly. “It’s no fault of yours.”

“Oh, but it is.” She stroked the golden scales of the barbed tail. “When I started singing to her in the evenings, all those songs I learned as a child, I had no idea she would grow so attached.”

“Or so large.”

Hallia nearly smiled. “I suppose we should never have let Cairpré give her such a weighty name, out of ancient dragon-lore, unless we expected her to live up to it someday.”

“That’s right—the name of the first queen of the dragons, mother of all their race.” I chewed my lip, recalling the old legend. “The one who risked her own life to swallow the fire from a great lava mountain, so that she, and all her descendants, might also breathe flames.”

At that, Gwynnia opened wide her jaws and gave another yawn, this time so loud that we both had to cover our ears. When at last the yawn ended, I observed, “Seems like the queen may need a nap.” In a hopeful whisper, I added, “We may get to finish our conversation yet.”

Hallia nodded, even as she shifted uneasily. But before she could say anything, a new sound sliced through the air. It was a high, mournful keening—the kind of sound that could only come from someone in the throes of death. Or, more accurately, someone for whom death itself would be a reprieve.

2:
T
HE
B
ALLYMAG

The anguished cries, from somewhere near the stream, continued. Grabbing my staff, I dashed across the grass, followed by Hallia. The young dragon merely watched us sleepily, nuzzling her wing with her enormous nose. Even before I reached the bank, I realized that the wailing—so loud that it drowned out the tumble and splatter of water on the stones—was coming from a bend upstream. Hallia and I rushed to the spot, pushing aside some yellow gorse that grew by the water’s edge.

There, struggling to pull itself onto the muddy bank, was the oddest-looking creature I had ever seen. His body was dark, rounded, and sleek, much like the seals of Fincayra’s western coast, though smaller in size. Too, he possessed a seal’s long whiskers and deep, sorrowful eyes. But instead of fins, this creature had arms, three on each side. Thin and bony, the arms each ended with a pair of opposing claws resembling a crab’s. From his well-padded belly hung a net of greenish webbing—a pouch, perhaps—while his back held a row of long, delicate tails, each one coiled tightly into a spiral.

Then I noticed the jagged cut, caked with mud, that ran down his right flank. As the creature flopped against the bank, moaning piteously, I knelt beside him. Quickly, splashing him with stream water, I tried to clean the wound. At first the poor beast, thoroughly consumed by his own suffering, didn’t seem to notice me. After a moment, though, he gave a sudden, violent shudder.

“Oh, terribulous painodeath! Horribulous bloodyhurt!” he bellowed. “My endafinish, so soon, so soon . . . And I so littleyoung, almost a barebaby.”

“Don’t worry,” I answered soothingly, hopeful that my own dialect sounded less strange to him than his did to me. “I’m sure that cut hurts, but it’s really not too deep.” I reached into my satchel and pulled out a handful of healing herbs. “These herbs—”

“Are for killocooking little mepoorme, of course! Such a dreadfulous, woefulous endafinish.” His whole body trembled, especially the thick rolls of fat under his chin. “How I soverymuch sufferfled—only to be cookpotted by a cruelous manmonster.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. Try to relax.” Dripping some water on the herbs, I patted them into a poultice. “This will help you heal faster, that’s all.”

The creature shrieked and tried to wriggle free. “Manmonster! You want to fattenchew me up lightningfast. Oh, agony woe! My painodeath so nearupon, my—”

“No,” I decided. “Calm down, will you?”

“You’ll imprisoncage me, then. Touroshow me, as your odditious beast! So more manmonsters can hurlastones at my cage, or pinchasqueal me through bars. Terribulous fate, horribulous end . . .”

“No!” I tried my best to work the poultice into the wound, but the creature’s constant thrashing made it nearly impossible. Several times he nearly slid off my lap into the water—or into the gorse bushes. “I’m here to help you, don’t you understand?”

“You? Manmonster? Whenevernever did manmonster do thingany punybit helpfulous for ballymag?”

“Ballymag?” repeated Hallia, bending lower. “Why, indeed he could be.” Catching my puzzled look, she explained, “One of the rarest beings on the island. I’ve only heard stories—but, yes, this surely looks like one. Though what he’s doing here, I don’t understand. I thought they lived only in the remotest marshes.”

“In Haunted Marsh itselfcertain,” wailed the ballymag. “Outstraighten your factsattacks! Before you imprisoncage me, crunchabeat me, and cookscald me with a hundreddozen stale potatoes. Oh, woefulous world, disheartenous distress!”

Shaking my head, I examined the gash again. “Trusting fellow, aren’t you?”

“Yes, most certainously,” bawled the creature, tears brimming in his round eyes. “My natureborn, that is. Too quicktrusting, too foolgullible. Always eagerready to find happyhope in any situation, I am! Which is why it’s my sorrowfate to shriekadie with stale potatoes. An assnasty turn!”

The ballymag drew a slow, unsteady breath. “Well, go ahead and killascream me. I’ll crumplego honorously.” For a full two seconds, he kept silent. Then, all at once, he bellowed, “Oh, terrorwoe crampymess! To be cookpotted now! So littleyoung. So bravelystrong. So—”

“Quiet!” I commanded, working myself into a sitting position on the bank. Baring my teeth, I glared at him fiercely. “The louder you protest, the more terrible your death will be.”

Hallia looked at me with surprise, but I ignored her. “Yes, oh yes.” I cackled murderously. “The only question is just
how
to kill you. But this much is certain: The more you fuss, the more painful I shall make it for you.”

“Trulyreally?” whimpered the ballymag.

“Yes! Now stop your wailing.”

“Oh, horribulous . . .”

“This instant!”

The beast fell silent. But for the occasional shiver, which made him jiggle from the top of his throat down to the bottom of his belly, he lay utterly still on my lap.

Gently, I placed my hands over the wound. I began concentrating on the deepest layers of flesh, where the tissue was most badly torn. At the same time, I inhaled deeply. I imagined that my lungs were filling not with air, but with light—the warm, soothing light of summer sun. Here, in the cherished lands of the deer people, where Hallia and I had romped so freely—and would again, I felt certain. In time, the light overflowed into the rest of me, brimming in my shoulders, running down my arms, flowing through my fingertips.

As the healing light poured into the ballymag’s wound, his body, even his whiskers, began to relax. All at once he moaned again. But this moan was different, sounding less pained and more surprised—even, perhaps, pleased. But knowing how much delicate work lay ahead, I shot him a wrathful glare. Instantly, he quieted.

I began directing the light into the severed flesh. Like a bard restringing a broken harp, I turned from one strand of tissue to the next, binding and tightening with care, testing the strength of each before moving on. At one spot, I found a tangle of ripped sinews, cut almost to the bone. These I bathed in light for some time just to separate them from each other. At length, I loosened them, then gently reconnected the tissues, coaxing them back to strength, back to wholeness. Layer by layer, I worked higher in the wound, slowly drawing nearer to the surface.

Several minutes later, I lifted my hands. The ballymag’s black skin shone smooth and unbroken. Feeling drained, I leaned back against the stream bank, resting my head against a gorse root. Blue sky shone through the yellow blossoms above my head.

At last I sat up. Lightly, I tapped the ballymag’s flank. “Well,” I sighed, “you’re in luck. I’ve decided not to boil you after all.”

The creature’s eyes, already wide, swelled some more. But he said nothing.

“It’s true, poor fellow. I never was going to harm you, but that was the only way I could get you to stay still.”

“You’re just toyannoying with me,” he groaned, squirming in my lap. “Laugholously playfooling me.”

Hallia looked at me warmly. “He doesn’t believe you now. But he will, in time.”

“Nowoe chancehappen of that!” The ballymag suddenly uncoiled several of his tails, wrapped them around a rock protruding from the bank, and wrenched himself free from my grip. He landed with a splash in the shallows at my feet. Spinning his six arms, he swam downstream at terrific speed. In a flash, he had rounded the bend and disappeared.

Hallia stroked her slender chin. “It’s safe to say you healed him, young hawk.”

I glanced over at my shadow, crouching beside me on the mud, whose pose seemed hopelessly insolent. “Glad I can get something right.”

She ducked under a branch and moved to my side, as gracefully as an unfurling flower. “Healing, I think, is different from other magic.”

“How so?”

Pensively, she rolled a twig between her fingers, then tossed it into the flowing water. “I’m not sure, exactly. But more of healing magic seems to come from within—from your heart, perhaps, or someplace even deeper.”

“And other kinds of magic?”

“From, well, outside of ourselves.” She waved at the azure sky. “From out there somewhere. Those powers reach us, and sometimes flow through us, but don’t really belong to us. Using them is more like using a tool—like a hammer or a saw.”

I pulled a mud-encrusted stick out of my hair. “I understand, but what about the magic we use to change ourselves into deer? Doesn’t that come from within?”

“No, not really.” Pondering her hand, she squeezed it into the shape of a hoof. “At the beginning, when I will myself to change, I can feel my inner magic—but only as a spark, a sort of invitation, that connects me with the greater magic out there. That’s the magic that brings change in all its forms: night into day, fawn into doe, seed into flower. The magic that promises . . .” She paused to stroke a curling shaft of fern sprouting beside her on the bank. “That every meadow, buried in snow all winter long, will spring into life once again.”

I nodded, listening to the splatter and spray of the stream. A snake, thin and green, emerged from a tangle of reeds by my feet and slipped into the water. “Sometimes I feel those outer powers—cosmic powers—so strongly they seem to be using
me,
wielding me like their own little tool. Or writing me like a story—a story whose ending I can’t do anything to change.”

Hallia leaned closer, rubbing her shoulder against mine. “It’s all this talk, isn’t it? Oh yes, young hawk, I’ve heard it, even from some of my clan who ought to know better. All about your future, your destiny, to be a wizard.”

“And not just any wizard,” I added, “but the greatest one of all times! Even greater than my grandfather, Tuatha, they say—and he was the wisest and most powerful mage ever to live. It’s . . . well, a lot of weight to carry around. So much that sometimes it’s all I can feel. As if my own choices, my own decisions, aren’t really mine after all.”

“Oh, but they are! They surely are. That’s what makes you . . .
you.
That’s why I wanted to tell you . . .” Her voice fell to a bare whisper. “What I wanted to tell you.”

“So will you tell me now?”

“No,” she declared, determined to stay on the subject. “Listen, now. Do you honestly think you have no more say in your future than the acorn that’s destined to become an oak tree? That couldn’t possibly become an ash or a maple, no matter how hard it tries?”

Glumly, I scraped the muddy bank with the heel of my boot. “So it seems.”

“But you have your own magic, too! What I said about the outer powers is true—but they couldn’t be used by us at all if we didn’t have our own powers, our own magic, within. And you, young hawk, have an amazing ability to tap into the greater magic. To receive it, concentrate it, and bend it to your will. I see it in you all the time, as clear as a face in a reflecting pool.”