The Dragon's Son (13 page)

“I don’t hear them. I don’t hear anything.”

“Yes, you do. You hear voices. Not your parents’ voices. Voices from inside.
Voices like mine that speak in colors and pictures.”

Marcus decided he didn’t like this man and he backed away from him,
retreated deeper into the darkness. He wasn’t going to answer, but he felt a
sudden sharp prick on his flesh.

“Maybe,” he said to make the pain stop.

“What do the voices say?”

“I don’t know. Most of the time I can’t understand them.”

“Most of the time?”

Marcus was silent. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“When do you understand the voices?”

“I won’t tell you.”

Another prick, this one more painful.

“I saw a face,” Marcus mumbled. “A woman’s face. She was beautiful and she
held out her hand to me and there was another hand, a child’s hand. I thought
this child might be someone I could play with. Someone who wouldn’t laugh at
me. I reached out to him, but he wasn’t there.”

“And then something happened. Something horrible. What was it?”

“Nothing happened. Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I’m not going away. And you are going to talk. What else did you see?”

Marcus searched for a way out. He ducked his head and turned and twisted,
but everywhere he looked, there was the man. Again, the pricking sensation on
his skin. Tears stung his eyes.

“I saw a dragon. A horrible dragon, like the one that attacked our city
before I was born. The dragon was huge with eyes like fire and a voice like the
cannon when it goes off and it scared me. The dragon told me that the woman was
my real mother. The dragon would take me to her if I would tell him where I
lived. Part of me wanted to, but another part of me was afraid, and I ran away.”

“Did the dragon try to follow you?”

“Yes. I could hear its wings beating and it growled at me, but I kept
running and running and the darkness hid me.”

“The dragon is searching for you now. You hear it, don’t you? It’s getting
very close. If it conies, I won’t be able to protect you. Give me your hand,
Marcus, and come walk with me in the sunshine. Quickly, before the dragon finds
you.”

Marcus shook his head and crawled and squirmed his way deeper into the
darkness.

“If you come with me,” the man bargained, “I’ll give you this.”

He swung the staff and the colors reappeared inside Marcus— sheets of
wondrous colors that twisted and warped and billowed out. The man reached out
and seized hold of the colors and molded them and shaped them. He opened his
hand and there was a ball made of motes of fire held together by strands of
rainbow. The man tossed the ball up into the air and when it fell, he caught
it, tossed it up into the air again.

“I’ll give you this toy, Marcus,” said the man, “and I’ll teach you how to
play with it. But you must come with me.”

Marcus stared at the wondrous ball. He had never imagined anything so
enchanting. He’d often tried to touch the colors and even command them, but
they darted away from his grasp, like the little green lizards that sunned
themselves on the garden wall.

The man tossed the ball lightly from one hand to the other. He made the ball
dance, caused it to hang suspended in the air between his two hands. Marcus
watched, dazzled. The man asked him again to come out to walk in the sunshine.
Marcus didn’t answer and the man took the ball between his two hands and
clapped and it disappeared.

“Bring it back,” pleaded Marcus.

“Only if you come with me,” said the man.

“I’m afraid,” Marcus said, again whimpering. “You hurt me.”

“Life hurts you, Marcus,” said the man. “And it will keep on hurting you,
for you are different from the rest. I can’t stop the pain, but I can give you
armor that will help to protect you and I can give you weapons that will help
to defend you. You have to do the rest. You can either choose to live,
Marcus—pain and all— or you can choose to die.”

“Die?” repeated Marcus, his voice quavering.

“Yes, die,” said the man, and he was very cool about it and uncaring. “For
you are killing yourself. And you know it.”

Marcus did know it. It was his secret, that he hugged to himself with
gleeful pride.

“Your mother and father will be sorry when you’re dead,” the man continued. “They
will feel the hurt you feel. You will punish them. It’s their fault that you
were ever born. . . .”

The secret had once seemed very bright and shiny, so clear that Marcus could
see himself reflected in it. He could still see himself, but he could see
behind him the empty darkness. Compared with the dazzling ball, the secret
seemed shabby and dirty.

He imagined tossing the ball into the air, the fresh air, the spring air,
the clean, bright air; not the fetid, twice-breathed air of the cell where he
was both jailer and prisoner.

Marcus rose, trembling, to his feet. He could hear the dragon clawing at his
cave and he was suddenly more afraid of the dragon than he was of life. He
reached out his hand to the man and walked into the sun’s bright glare.

The dragon swiped at him with a claw, but missed.

ONCE HE HAD BEEN ENTICED OUT OF HIS HIDING PLACE, Marcus regained his
physical health rapidly. He had gone without eating solid food for so long that
at first he could keep down only gruel and water. His youth and resiliency stood
him in good stead, however, and he was soon eating rabbit with a relish. His
mental health took longer to recover.

Questioning the boy, Draconas found out that Marcus had been living in two
separate worlds since about the age of four. At first, he traveled easily
between the two realms, as do children who create an imaginary world with
imaginary playmates. Then he started to become aware that the real world—the
world of stone and brick, flesh and silk, perfume and steel—was not a very nice
place. He began to notice the way people looked at him— some with pity, others
with scorn. He had always heard the whispers. Now he understood them. Reality
brought him pain. The magic in his mind brought him pleasure. Small wonder that
he’d made the choice to abandon one in favor of the other.

Marcus did not tell Draconas his secrets immediately. Draconas had to drain
them out of him slowly and carefully, as one drains the infection from a putrid
wound. All the while, Draconas was learning about the way the magic worked in
this child’s mind and possibly in the minds of all the others possessed by the
dragon magic. He came to the realization that the minds of those humans who had
inherited the magic were not completely human.

They were part dragon. A very small part, perhaps. Not like Ven, who was
half-human, half-dragon. Perhaps he was not the first to be born like this.
Although perhaps he was the first to have survived . . .

But that was all speculation and conjecture and Draconas didn’t have time
for either. He’d done what he could to warn Ven about using his magic and
either his words had reached the dragon’s son or the incident with the “thieves”
had scared him because Ven no longer came near the magic. If Draconas could not
contact Ven, then neither could his father, which was some comfort. Ven could
not hide from himself forever. Hunger would drive him back into the world,
whether he wanted to go or not. But for the moment though, the dragon’s son was
safe.

Melisande’s other son was not.

“Scoop up the clay in your hand,” Draconas told Marcus. “You’re going to
shape it—”

“You promised me I could play with the magic.” Marcus sat back on his heels
and regarded Draconas with a bold, defiant air.

“Go ahead,” said Draconas, shrugging. “I’m not stopping you.”

Marcus blinked at him. “But . . . you have to give me the magical ball. You
have to make it for me. I can’t do that myself.”

“Yes, you can. That’s what I’m trying to teach you. Pick up a handful of
clay.”

“I don’t want to play with clay,” Marcus said petulantly.

He and Draconas were relaxing on the bank of the river. They had spent the
morning fishing and splashing in the shallow water near the shore. Marcus cast
a contemptuous glance at the wet, reddish gray silt beneath his grimy knees.

“I want to play with the magic.”

“You can, but I’m not going to give it to you. From now on, you have to
create it yourself.”

“But I can’t,” Marcus complained. “I don’t know how.”

“You weren’t born knowing how to walk, I suppose,” observed Draconas.

“Maybe I was,” Marcus returned, slyly grinning. “Mother says I am very
precocious.”

Draconas found himself smiling back—a rare occurrence for the walker, who
hadn’t had much to smile about lately.

“You’re a good kid, you know that,” Draconas said. “Or you would be, if your
parents hadn’t spoiled you rotten. And you’re not that precocious. You crawled,
like everyone else.”

“I know my parents spoil me,” said Marcus forthrightly. He shook the hair
out of his eyes, gazed steadily at Draconas. “It’s because they’re afraid of me.
I still remember the look on Mother’s face when I described the colors and
light and shapes I could see in my mind. I thought it was something everyone
could do and then I looked at Mother and I saw fear in her eyes. I knew then
that she was afraid of me.”

“And that gave you power over her, didn’t it?” said Draconas.

Marcus’s cheeks reddened. “Yes.” A glint of defiance returned to the hazel
eyes. “But I needed that power. My older brothers are always doing such great
and wonderful things. They make my parents proud. And I ...” He pressed his
lips together, fell silent.

“You frighten them.” Marcus nodded.

“And you think that they are being nice to you just because they are afraid
of you.”

Marcus lifted his eyes, looked at Draconas. “Aren’t they?”

“They are afraid
for
you, Marcus. Not of you.”

The river flowed sluggishly, the swift waters of the spring melt and runoff
a distant memory. The early summer sun shone down though the leaves, casting
shadows that shifted with the gentle breeze. The clay, covered over by a thin
layer of water, was warm in the sunshine and sparkled with a faintly metallic
sheen. Marcus gazed out over the river, in the direction that Draconas had told
him was home. His eyes grew unfocused, but he wasn’t seeing the magic in his
head. He was seeing his parents, listening to
their
voices, maybe for
the first time.

“I never thought of it that way,” he admitted. “I guess you’re right.” He
looked back at Draconas. “I hurt them a lot, didn’t I?”

“Almost as much as they hurt you.” Draconas reached out to shove back the
bangs that kept falling into the boy’s eyes.

Marcus was a comely child. He would be a handsome man, very much like his
father, but lacking the light in Edward’s hazel eyes. Marcus’s hazel eyes would
always be haunted by the shadows of his little room.

“You’ll be home soon and you and your parents can all start fresh.” Draconas
pointed to the clay. “Now you’re going to crawl. Once you’ve done that, I’ll
teach you how to walk.”

Sighing, Marcus dug both hands into the clay and scooped out a large,
dripping mass.

“Now what?” he demanded.

“Form it into a ball. Think about how the clay feels in your hand, how it
looks and smells. Feel the tiny granules that make it rough and notice how
those contrast with the slippery, smooth texture. Feel the warmth of the
sun-warmed water and the coldness of clay that has been lying beneath it. See
the tiny, broken shells of the little creatures that once lived in it. Smell
the wet smell, the earth smell, the fish smell, all mingled together.”

“This is more fun than I thought,” announced Marcus, with a small boy’s
enjoyment of playing in the dirt.

He molded and shaped enthusiastically, slapping the clay and laughing
gleefully when he splashed water all over Draconas. Marcus made a ball, smooth
and round. Then he made a duck, modeling it after a real duck paddling among
the reeds. The finished product looked like no duck Draconas had ever seen, but
he praised it to the skies.

They spent the afternoon on the riverbank. Marcus pinched and shaped the clay,
learning how to transfer the image in his mind to his fingers. He was often
frustrated, but he was patient with himself and his mistakes; rolling the clay
into a ball and trying again.

“Good,” Draconas commented both inwardly and aloud. “Very good.”

They returned to their camp when the sun dipped down among the tree limbs
and the boy started to shiver. After dinner, as Marcus sat with his arms
wrapped around his knees, staring into the flames of their cook fire, Draconas
said quietly, “Go into your little room. Look into your mind. Summon up the
colors. You don’t need me. You can do this yourself.”

Marcus’s gaze turned inward. A smile that was soft and tenuous and awed
parted his lips. His eyes darted about, following the shimmering swirl of the
magic.

Draconas drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. He had been dreading this
moment, but he couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Reach out,” he instructed, “and scoop up the magic, as you scooped up the
clay. Not with your hands. Reach out with the hands inside you.”

“I don’t understand,” protested Marcus. “I don’t have hands inside me.”

“Your soul has hands, though they are not made of flesh. They are made of
dreams and hope, of fear and despair, of beauty and of ugliness. Find the hands
of your soul and use them to seize the magic.”

“You’re not making sense,” said Marcus scornfully. He shut his ears to
Draconas, concentrated on the magic.

“Stubborn little brat,” Draconas muttered. “All right. You asked for it.”

Draconas reached into his own magic, grabbed hold of a blazing handful of
fire, and flung the glob of flame at Marcus. The fiery ball burst through the
door of the little room, coming straight at the terrified boy.