Birthnight (2 page)

“And,” one of the Sylvan folk broke in, “my
people cannot call them further to our dance without the greatest
of efforts.”

The dragon turned his mighty head to regard
the small, slender woman of the fey ones. And what he saw surprised
even he. He lowered his head to the earth in a gesture of respect
for the Queen of all Faerie.

“Yes,” she said, with a smile that held the
ages and used them wisely, “I too have come out on this road.
Something is in the earth, my friend—and in the air. There is
danger and death for all of us.” She reached out and placed a
perfect hand between his nostrils. He felt a thrill of magic touch
him.

He snorted again, and the fire passed
harmlessly around her. “I am no foolish mortal.”

Her smile held all the beauty and danger of
the reaver of mortal men. “Ah? No, I see you are not, mighty
brother.” She turned, swirling in a dress made of water and wood,
fire and wind, and walked away to where her people waited to pay
court.

“She is not without power,” the unicorn
whispered, long after her presence had faded.

“No, little sister, she is not. Nor will ever
be, I feel. But she, too, is worried.” He walked slowly and
sinuously by the unicorn’s delicate path until the sun splashed low
upon the horizon; the wound of the sky, and the beginning of day’s
death. Then, he took to air, that his wings might hide the stars
and bring the lovely night to those below.

And in the sky, shining as it had been for
these past few days, a star burned low and impossibly bright. There
was magic in it, and a fire, that the dragon envied and feared. And
he had been drawn to it, as had all the immortal kin.

* * *

Although they all, in their way, could move
more quickly than mortal man can imagine, they chose the road that
only they could see, and followed it in a procession not seen since
magic’s first birth. The harpies became hungry and vexed, and in
time even the good-natured bird of fire grew weary of their
company. He never landed, although occasionally he elected to skim
the surface of grass and tree alike, touching just enough to curl,
never enough to singe.

The unicorn and the dragon kept company on
the road during the day; only at night did the dragon yearn for,
and take to, the open air. For there, hovering by the strength of
his great wings, he could see the star that never wavered and never
twinkled. Days they travelled, and those days became weeks for any
who cared—or knew enough—to mark time’s passage, but the star never
grew closer, never larger.

Others joined them in their strange, unspoken
quest; the hydra with his nine mighty heads, the minotaur with his
one, and Pegasus, creature of wind and light—a rival to the
unicorn’s beauty and grace; a thing of air. Each asked, in
whispers, why the others walked, but no one had any answer that
they cared to give; immortals seldom speak of their own
ignorance.

Last came the Sphinx, with her cat-like gait
and her inscrutable features. For so mighty, and so knowledgeable a
personage, the dragon came down to earth, although it was starlit
night.

“Sister,” he said, touching ground with a
beard of scale.

“Brother,” she answered. “What is old as
time, yet newly born; brings life to the dying and death to the
living; is born of magic and born to end magic’s reign?”

The dragon sighed; many years had passed
since he’d last seen the Sphinx, and he had forgotten how she chose
to converse. Still, her riddles held answers for those skilled
enough to see them, and the dragon had lived forever. The game of
words distracted him for many hours—well into the sun’s rise and
renewal, before he at last shook his great head. “A masterful
riddle, sister—
that
is the one you should have asked.”

She glared at him balefully, and he did not
further mention the single failure that marred her perfect
record.

“What is the answer?”

But she did not speak it; instead she looked
up and into the daylit sky. There, faint but unmistakeable, the
aurora of a single star could be seen, pale twin to the sun’s
grace.

* * *

“But what does the riddle mean?” The unicorn
asked quietly; she did not have the black dragon’s pride behind
which to hide her lack of knowledge. “And what was the answer?”

“The answer?” He snorted; he did that often,
and the trees bore the brunt of his mild annoyance. “She does not
give answers for free—and only mortals have the coin with which to
pay her.”

“Oh.” The unicorn cantered over to the
unfortunate tree that had stood in the path of the dragon’s fire.
Very gently, she laid horn to burnt bark—and slowly, the black
passage of his breath was erased. “Maybe mortals have the coin with
which to pay us all?”

It was a foolish question—one unworthy of an
immortal. But as it was she who asked, he thought on it—and when
night returned, and the sky beckoned, he was no closer to a
comfortable answer than he had been to the Sphinx’s riddle. But he
felt that he preferred the latter’s game to the unicorn’s open
vulnerability.

The night brought answers of a sort, although
not in the way that the dragon had expected or hoped for.

As he flew, he watched the road below—and
saw, at the furthest reach of his vision, three men on camel-back.
They were dressed against the chill of the night, and they passed
between the trees of the road-made-real by the Queen of Faerie, as
if those majestic trees did not exist. They had retainers who
travelled on foot; at their beck and call were wagons and caravans
fit solely for mortal kings.

Three princes, thought the dragon. Where do
they travel?

He swept down, out-racing the harpies, but
his wings did not even panic the camels. The princes did not look
up at all from their quiet conversation. The harpies followed; they
plunged downward, glinting claws extended, and hit ground before
they hit men. Somehow, they had missed, and they rose, shakily, to
try, and try again, to make victims out of those who travelled.

But there was no stopping the three and their
procession as it came closer and closer to the heart of the
traveling beasts. Still, at last, at the break of day, they chose
to call a halt to their wandering. Their servants immediately began
to set up tents and canvases to protect them from the sun’s
light.

Only when all was settled and quiet did the
Queen of Faerie approach. She wandered, sylph-like but more
majestic, into the heart of their gathering, wearing the guise of a
mortal maid too beautiful to ignore. Her gathered robe of the
elements she disguised as the finest of pure white silks; she
looked young, vulnerable—the dream of every foolish youth.

The three princes were seated beneath the
largest tent; they drank water from golden goblets, and kept
careful watch on the ornate boxes that rested on each man’s
lap.

Quietly, she approached the most seemly of
the men, and ran a gentle finger along the line of his beard. He
looked up, his eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” The oldest of the three said,
concern and fatigue in his voice.

“I thought I felt something; it must have
been the passing wind. It has been a very long journey, and I am
tired.”

“It has been long, yes,” the third man said,
“and kings are not used to so arduous a travel—but we are truly
blessed, who can undertake this pilgrimage.”

The oldest man smiled beatifically. “Yes,” he
whispered, his hands caressing the inlaid jewel work of his
magnificent casket, “we are blessed; for we are mortal kings—but we
will see the birth and promise of the king to end all kings—God
made flesh.” He stood slowly, and walked to the edge of the
pavilion. “There—you can still see the star in the sky. We are on
the right path, my friends.”

* * *

If the Queen of all Faerie dared to hold
court in such a way that demanded the attention of all the
immortals, none cared to complain about it openly. Indeed, when she
returned, all ice and cold anger, from her foray into the human
encampment, the gathering knew that the unimaginable had come to
pass: She had gone, in her own royal person, and failed to call a
mortal’s attention when she had decided upon it.

The great black dragon lay close to the cool
grass, scales in dirt and moss. His head, he rested upon his great
forepaws; his wings he curled in upon the expanse of his back. His
unlidded eyes were fixed upon the fey and delicate fury of the
Queen.

“You see,” she said softly, in a whisper that
might have shaken the underworld, “what we must do, my
brethren.”

The harpies screeched their agreement. They
had passed beyond hunger now, and were ravening; at any moment, the
dragon feared that they would begin to attack their kindred.

“We too have been drawn onto the course these
mortals follow, although we tread the path-made-real at my behest.
We too have seen the star in the sky—no natural star, nor any
magical one that I have encountered before.” She lifted a hand, and
a ray of light, tinged with an eerie shadow, leapt skyward in her
anger. “We are no mortal ephemera, to be called by the whim of a
mere godling. Gods have come and gone, and we have remained,
steadfast and true, in the darknesses and dreams that they cannot
touch.”

“Until now, sister,” the unicorn said softly.
“Can you not feel it?”

No other creature would have dared to correct
the Queen of Faerie, and no other creature would have survived it
unmarred. But the unicorn was special, dear to the queen, and
earned only a dark frown in return for her question.

“Indeed, dear one, we feel it. But now that
we know the cause, we know well what we must do. There is a godling
being birthed even now.

“I call for that godling’s death.” So saying,
she raised a second hand, a darkness limned with eerie light also
joined her flare in the sky. “This is my curse as Queen
undying.”

As her words echoed and faded in the near
scentless wind, the dragon felt something he had never known
before: fear.

* * *

They left the three princes—or kings, as the
Queen had called them—to the shadows of the mortal realm, with its
hot sun, its icy nights, and its endless, barren desert. The star
burned brightly, ever brightly, as it laced the sky with shards of
cast-off light, and the dragon flew when it was at the height of
its brilliance.

He saw the mortal villages pass beneath the
shadow of his mighty body, covered now in sleep and silence, now in
merriment and celebration, now in mourning and wailing. He saw
lives turn beneath him, impossibly fragile, impossibly tiny. He
yearned for the breath of fire, for the sounds of their fear and
falling bodies—but he knew that until the death of the godling,
this grandeur was denied him.

Watching was not.

The phoenix flew beside him in the air, and
as the days passed, he grew a little less brilliant, a little less
radiant. “The time is coming,” he said softly, for the dragon’s ear
alone, “when the fires will die.”

“I will breath upon you again, little
fledgling,” the dragon replied, “and you will know new life. You
are almost a worthy child to a dragon.” It was a lie, of course—no
creature would be worthy of that—but he felt compelled to offer it
anyway; he did not know why.

“Your fires, I fear,” the phoenix replied,
all song stilled, “will never again be hot enough to kindle
life.”

Angered, the dragon roared, startling those
below who were in the habit of being taken unaware. He drew a great
breath; the wind sailed into his mighty lungs like a storm upon the
open sea. His jaws opened wide, and his teeth glittered in the
light from the solitary star. Wings flashed black against the sky
with so much power the phoenix was driven off course.

The dragon breathed
fire
.

Fire of the first born; fire to melt and
cinder the very bones of the earth. An endless stream of blue light
and heat surged through the air, wilting treetop and grass alike.
And when the roaring of voice and fire combined had stilled, the
dragon searched the sky for a sign of the phoenix.

It seemed brighter and perhaps just a little
renewed.

“That is my fire,” the dragon said, with more
than a little pride.

“Almost, you give me hope, brother,” the
magical creature replied.

Satisfied, the black dragon continued to
glide, but he roared no more that eve, and although he would not
admit it, not even to the gentle one, he was suddenly very
weary.

* * *

“I have never killed a child before,” the
unicorn said quietly, as the road stretched on beneath her delicate
hooves.

“All mortal men are children,” the black
dragon replied, equally quietly. “If we sleep, they turn in their
season, and wither as trees do. But they emerge into no spring.
They are born, they age, they die.”

“True,” she agreed, but her tone was
hesitant.

“What worries you?” The dragon ducked under a
playful plume of phoenix fire. He inhaled and returned the volley
without changing the nature of the game.

“I remember,” she said at last, “When the
world was a forest. There were men then, yes, but they were few—and
we ruled and played as we desired, teasing their dreams and
creating new ones.

“The world is no forest now. Men are harder
to reach, harder to touch; instead of seeking us, they have turned
away. This invisibility,” she added, as she trailed her horn across
the air, “is new—but is it so very different? We are already
fading.”

The dragon thought long on this, but not
deeply—although depth was usually his way. “When we kill the child,
all will be as it was.”

“So you believe the Queen?”

“Of course.” He paused. “Do you doubt
her?”

“I have never killed a child before.”

* * *

Starlight trailed down the spirals of her
horn like pale, silver liquid. Although he longed to take to the
skies, he remained at her side. He felt an odd tremor, a strange
desire, as he looked at her silhouette in the night sky. Gold and
jewels and magical things had once inspired him—but in time they
had lost their lustre and importance, and become just another cold,
hard bed, undifferentiated from the rocks of his cavern.