Dragon's Keep (26 page)

day
we met. In life he had not cut the dragon's talon as
his father had done, but in my dream, a claw hung at his side. Blood con
gealed about the edge where sword had severed the
dragon's claw.
He looked at me, his
eyes going from blue to gold, and there was
blood upon his lip.

Lord Faul and pips all asleep, I stirred the
fire and watched the wavering flames. I'd known long ago about the egg
stealing, but never had I considered its full meaning. Mother and Father were
human, yet Faul and Charsha's egg had prepared my mother's womb, else I would
never have been born.

My skin flashed hot
then cold as I stared across the fire at the great dragon who slept, his scales
all silver with the fire. I was
human,
but also in my veins ran the blood of dragons.

_{The Scales}

It
was not long after
the
pips' first flight that I braved a dif
ferent
sort of leap. Not one from a high place but one in my own heart, though I felt
the falling just as much. I faced my hidden book, and filling my quill with
blackberry ink, I wrote about my mother.

In the hollow tree my hand quaked as I
lettered Mother's early years with me. Her dream for me had been my water and
sunlight, my evening and my morn, and I grew under her constant gaze as a rose
will in a gardener's care. But was it love? I could not answer this.

Was it love drove Mother to drown my dear
Marn?

Tears smeared the ink as I wrote of Marn's
death; my heart ached with the memory of her. I'd shut my mind against the
thought of murder when first we fished her from the moat but even then a part
of me had known.

Why so driven? Mother had to protect me. Marn
had seen my claw, so the threat of witch burning might have driven her to

violence
. But Marn loved me with all her strength. Wouldn't my
nursemaid have kept silent? Mother never waited to find out.

I wept many hours as I wrote, and held the
skin away from the tears to keep the letters sound as I wrote how Mother knifed
Tess, scrawled witchery in blood across her
hut, and let the angry
crowd rush to Morgesh Mountain to burn Demetra
for the crime. Marn, Tess, Demetra. Three deaths I knew of to keep my claw
secret; were there more I knew nothing of? Was it
only ;i
blizzard killed the midwife on my birthing day?

My quill broke. I sharpened another. The
words scrawling themselves on the dragon scales—my hands holding all the secrets
my mind did not yet know.

Six years my mother had
tried to have me, and facing barren
ness,
she'd gone to Demetra. She would not give in but set two plans in motion—one at
least would win out.

The queen would quicken her womb with
Demetra's magic. If that should fail Aliss would have a babe for her. A pillow
wedged under Mother's gown would guise pregnancy while she waited for Aliss to
give birth in Demetra's cave. Ah, but it never came to that. The dragon's egg
sparked her womb and Father planted a sturdy seed that stayed and grew.
So Aliss was abandoned, her girl raised as a bastard and a
servant.

I'd kenned Mother's plan for Aliss using
scraps of memory from things she'd said, from the pleas Aliss had made the day
she'd begged us to take Kit, and from Demetra's words that had
long haunted me:
She might have walked in
your shoes.

Indeed what a princess Kit would have made if
I had not been born. Still, Mother had condemned her childhood friend to

life
with the hag, so I was glad that Kit and I had risked
our lives to save Aliss.

Stiff from huddling in my hollow, I stood,
stretched, and
made a little pile of sticks
in the clearing for a fire. Mother's mir
ror was scratched but not
broken. Pearls and emeralds still encircled the rim. The day she gave it to
me, I'd bid her look inside and spy her angelic face. How her lip had trembled
then, and she'd covered the mirror with her hand saying, "There's no angel
in the glass unless it faces you." After that she'd pushed me into the
hall and, though I heard her crying through the door, I did not go back inside.
All her deeds were upon her that day. She'd seen them in the glass darkly. I'd
not known then what made her weep. But I knew now.

*
2J7 W

Lord faul had me
work
the pips each day until their wings
were strengthened. I was to ensure they stayed within the wilds of Dragon's
Keep but keep them hours in the air to build the muscles in their wings.
Neither Faul nor the pips knew I'd overheard their plan to meet the others on
an isle across the sea, but I knew by strengthening their wings I was numbering
my days on Dragon's Keep.

I had little time to work on my boat. It was
nearly finished, but weeks went by when I could not even make it to the hill.
From mid-March through early April when the sky was clear of rain, we soared
over Dragon's Keep, following the river through
the hills or visiting the cliffs on the far side of the island. On land
Ore was the least of the pips, but once lifted to the sky she was queen
to it. Ah, she was like the sparrow that swoops and twirls with easy grace,
darting in and out of trees too tangled for the other pips.

I took to riding Kadmi's back, as I had in
our hunting days on the ground. Once in the air I knew my childhood dreams

were
some strange chanting of my dragon's blood. A beast
memory passed on from dragon to pip. I'd had the same flying dream
so many times, though in it I'd thought myself an
angel or a bird.
Yet always I'd seen
a great shadow on the earth below me, cast by
my own mighty wingspan. I
was full of power in these dreams
and always
happy. Now as I flew on dragon's back, the dream be
came flesh.

"Lower down," I called up to Kadmi.
We were trying a new trick. He was dangling me over a
petra
tree, where I was picking fruit. A little grove grew on the isle, though I'd
not seen such trees at home. My hair hung down and my gown was askew.

"Lower still. I cannot reach them!"

Chawl swooped past and tore a branch from the
top.

"Not like that!" I shouted. Chawl
hissed and circled round us as Kadmi lowered me closer to the treetop. I
plucked the egg-shaped fruit, which was larger than my fist and bright red.
Ripening here in spring, it was bitter and sour at once. I could
not eat of it but the pips adored it. I gathered
twelve in my woven
sack, dropped three as Kadmi bashed me into a branch,
and we counted it a victory.

On the ground Eetha and Ore joined us for the
snack. They gobbled the fruit, their jaws bloodred. A robin sang from the high
branch and it put me in mind of Kit. "Did I tell you," I asked,
"about the time Kit threw
herself
in the moat to
rescue a robin?"

"More than once," said Eetha,
popping another
petra
fruit in her mouth. Faul had his
history lessons. I had my stories to combat them. These were not history but
tales of my childhood told

in
English to ease my mouth from DragonTongue a while.
I'd begun to share them with the pips when they rested between flights. The
DragonLord was far away and he did not have to know. I'd sworn the pips to
secrecy, though Eetha had taken some convincing.

"Tell a battle
story," said Chawl. These were the only tales he
cared about and the more blood the better, but I
didn't want to talk of war.

"I'll tell you what happened to
Demetra."

"The one who stole the egg?" asked Ore.

"Aye, the one who
stole it long ago."

Eetha blew out a flame. "She should burn
for that."

"She did burn." I twirled a stick
as if I didn't care whether I should recount the tale or not.

"Tell us!" they cried in
DragonTongue.

I twirled the stick again. "Say it in
English."

They begged again and this time in my favored
tongue.

"Very
well."
I sighed as if I cared little for the story. Now they
were all within my power,
begging me to tell. I recounted Demetra's
death. The pips all cheered when the villagers threw their
torches in the hag's cave and cocked their heads
when I told them
of the shadow wraith climbing out of Kit's mouth. In
the weeks to come this became their favorite story. In this way Demetra burned
again and again as if she were caught in the devil's eternal fire. I liked
that right well.

The pips and I were rich in sky that spring.
And all of us
were coming into our power. I
looked the part of a dragon's maid
by then. My onetime May Day gown had
gone to so many holes

>

that
now it was completely patched with the pips'
moltings. It shimmered blue-green as I soared over the isle. Hands round
Kadmi's neck, I sped with them over the hills, my
red hair blow
ing back, my face and hands brown from the sun, my talon
full exposed.

I could no more play the part of the pretty
princess than a warty frog could sport a queen's bright crown. But the pips
were not ashamed of me. Indeed, they seemed to tolerate me better now. It may
be the familiar smell of my dragon gown appealed to their snouts. Even Faul
seemed less sickened by my form, his broad green nostrils twitching less at my
approach.

The pure joy of flying drove us on, as did
our hunger. Spying a wild boar in the woods below, Kadmi circled above the
trees. I could feel his body pulsing under mine as the boar raced for cover.

"Stay back, Chawl," warned Eetha.
"I see your blood!"

Chawl wheeled lower, ignoring his sister's
warning. Wind sang in my ears and a fearsome cry rang throughout the wood as
all the pips but Eetha dove for the prey. The attack was swift but the boar
gored Chawl's back leg before Kadmi finished it off.

Chawl roared fire as
his blood spattered the body of the boar.
Eetha
landed near me. I tore my cloak with her help and together we bound Chawl's
leg.

"You should have
listened, Chawl," I scolded. "Eetha has the
sight."

Chawl only bellowed more fire.

The pips ate roasted boar that night in the
lair, but Faul was angry with me over Chawl's injury and would not let me eat.
I

nibbled
bones after all were asleep, but they didn't touch my
hunger.

In late April a sudden rainstorm swept over
Dragon's Keep. We
ceased our flying lessons
as the Ashath River swelled beside our
cave. I'd borne the closeness of
the lair two days straight, staying within for warmth, but the dragons' chief
occupation on rainy
days was sleep and the
sounds of their heavy snoring fairly rattled
my bones. At last I quit
the lair to brave the storm.

My teeth chattered as I scurried for my
hollow tree and the comfort of my little book. Huddled in the cold, I stitched
more scales
to
the booklet, took up my quill and penned my life witlh
Faul and the pips, the joy of flight on Kadmi's back, and my discovery of
treasure behind the falls. How I slipped the sapphire
ring over my claw, found Evaine's scepter, discovered Lord Brod-
erick's
ink bottle.

I scripted all Lord Faul said about the
dragon wars (fitting to
write dragon
history on dragon skin), and worried the
scales
with
my ink
over the dwindling of the dragons. A year ago I might have been glad of this
dwindling, but not now.

Two pages filled, I shivered in the belly of
the willow. The wind was fierce that day and the trees all about were losing
branches
to it.
I wondered then how Kye would see me if he returned
just now. Could he love a girl wrapped in dragon scales?
It may be fighting in a war would make him bother
less with skin
than soul. And like the threshers of the grain, he'd see
the heart of wheat beneath the husk.

Taking up my quill, I tried a new verse on
the matter, but my scrawl did not conform to the beauty of my thoughts. So I
washed the ink off the dragon scale with wet weeds, bit my tongue, and tried
again.

Head bowed and eyes to the script, I did not
attend the noise outside. But when a gust of wind shook my tree with violence,
I looked up and saw a figure. At first she seemed an apparition, rain and fog
befuddling my sight, but on she came, black-caped and soaked with rain. The
girl moved past the brambles, and closer still, I saw who she was.

_{The Messenger}

Kit! my kit!
small
and weaponless.
Wearing the rough brown garb of a novice, she was
wandering lost, it seemed, but heading toward the curl of smoke that came from
Lord Faul's lair.

Quick, I tore from my book the scale I'd been writing on and wrapped it
round my claw. She'd never seen my beast mark and I couldn't risk shocking her
with it now. Silence was needed and haste. Bolting outside, I grabbed her from
behind and covered her mouth.

Kit screamed into my palm, but when I turned her around we held each other
weeping. Holding my dearest friend so close again, my body shook with joy. But
fear for her life soon had mc pulling her farther from the dragons' cave. Faul
had said ho would not eat human flesh, but his vow rested on my promise-not to
speak to my kind. If he should spy Kit here with me, wouldn't he think I'd
broken my vow? And if I'd broken mine what was to stop him from eating Kit?
These thoughts made me run all the faster.