Dragon's Keep (25 page)

duction
, the birthing of the pips, the coming of the
dragonslayers, my vow of silence to Lord Faul.

After that the scaly
pages turned back to my early life. I wrote
about
my swan shadow, Kit; told tales of my nursemaid, Marn; and scratched stories of
my father on the dragon skin. How Father had let me ride upon his back when I
was small. How he always believed I would grow up to marry for love, and how
he'd
bid me make a wish before I tossed my
stone in Lake Ailleann. I
told of Sir Magnus, who served the stars and
locked himself in the crow's nest boiling strange brews and meddling with
books. I even wrote about the pigboy, who swelled up with bee stings and who
thanked me for curing him with a dried chicken's foot—"which be for
luck," Bram had said, though I tossed his withered treasure in the mews
and the birds were flustered by it.

It was nearly a month before I could bear to
scrawl the rest of my story. By then the ink was gone so I fashioned my own
with strained blackberry juice and soot. I'd avoided till then all mention of
my mother. I knew writing her part of my twisted tale would be simple as
spilling blood.

Flight

Snow melted and the
march rains
kept us in the cave. The
pips were restless. Chawl was the worst, frolic
being in his blood.
An hour wouldn't
pass before he'd be slapping Kadmi's tail or bit
ing little Ore in the rump.

"Stop that!" I'd shout. Chawl would
stop for two breaths mayhap three then roll himself into a ball and tumble into
Eetha; more shouting from Eetha and roaring from Chawl. How the pips tested me!

In the middle of March the sky cleared and we
left the cave for the sunlight. Lord Faul led us through the woods, the pips
running circles round me in their joy.

At first I thought Faul was taking us out
hunting, but he had another purpose. We climbed the hills and rounded back
toward the Ashath River. Our path ended at the top of the waterfall. There the
dragon spread his wings and quit the cliff. Skimming over the river, he sped
above pines, oaks, and rowans. Then he seemed to disappear over the very edge
of the world.

Indeed, standing on the rocks beside Eetha
and Ore, I won-

dered
why he'd brought us thither only to leave us high and
lonely at the falls. But from behind he came again, his shadow swooping over us
like a dark angel. I felt the cold of it on my shoulders, and the wind he
stirred tousled my hair.

Landing nearby, Faul folded his wings neat as
a lady folds a fan, then he motioned to his strongest pip.
"Chawl.
The sky is yours to conquer."

"Sire?" said Chawl, backing away
from the edge.

"Do you think those things upon your
back are for wiping your snout?" Faul growled.

"No."

"Then find the use of them!"

"Lord Faul,"
I said meekly. "It's a high place to learn the skill."
The pips lined up behind me as I spoke, and I took
courage from it. "If we were to venture lower down, the pips could—"

"Stay clear of this!" shouted Faul,
pulling Chawl from behind me. Chawl fluttered his wings. A poor sight they
were, flimsy as bed sheets, and my stomach turned.

We were as high as the castle tower. I looked
down at the churning water and my breath caught in my throat.

"The day is lengthening," said
Faul, his eyes never leaving Chawl.

"It's deadly far," I said. "He
could be crushed and killed."

"Climb down if you haven't the bowels to
meet the day," ordered Faul.

I stepped back, unsure if he was speaking to
Chawl or me.

"I hunger," said Chawl, and I did
hear his belly growling.

"No supper till the lot of you have
leaped."

"Unfair," I
argued. Lord Faul knocked me on my backside. I banged my head against a stone
and lay there, arms outstretched.
My head
throbbed; my shoulder ached. Somewhere beyond my
feet was the tumbling water. Rubbing my sore head, I came slowly
to
a stand and watched Faul pick up a stone.

"When I toss this over, jump," he
said.

"Eeeach!"
cried Chawl, fear or anger stirring such a flame in
side his belly that he poured fire from his mouth.

Lord Faul drew back his
arm and tossed. Chawl didn't move,
but with a whack from Lord Faul's claw, he was over the
cliff and
falling.

"Spread your
wings!" shouted Faul. Out Chawl s wings went,
slowing him to a spinning spiral. Still he was going
down to his death in the crashing water.

Lord Faul dove and caught him in his talons,
and brought him screeching to the cliff.

"Again!"
shouted Faul. Out flew the stone; out came the claw
to knock Chawl over. Off fell the pip, down and
spiraling again. And just before his wet death Chawl's wings caught the air.
Over the pool he sped, then crashed into a willow, where, stunned, he fell onto
his back and lay feet upward.

"Leave him to his dreams," mumbled
Faul.
"Eetha!
Step up! The edge
awaits
!"

So the lessons went as one after another,
Eetha and Kadmi fell close to death, were rescued, fell again, and took flight.

Day fled and the sun began to sink into the sea.
Hungry and stinking with the drench of my own sweat, I watched Ore, last and smallest of the pips, spill downward a third time. This time

her
wings unfurled, and she managed a bloodless landing
in a brawl of blackberry bushes below.

"Done!" snorted Lord Faul, his
sides heaving from his day of hurling and retrieving pips. Below us Chawl,
Kadmi, and Eetha were by the pool fishing for trout while Ore tried to
disentangle her tail from the blackberry bush.

Lord Faul picked up a stone and turned to me.

"What? You would
throw me over now?" I said this in English.

He blinked and answered in kind. "Much
as a caterpillar flies."

I gripped my gown.
"Aye,
after the growing of her wings."

"Who's to say
there aren't wings in her all along?" said Faul.
"And what if one who has the blood, with pretty
claw and fire in her belly—"

"I have no fire," I corrected.

"You have! I've seen it, Briar!"
Anger drove the words through his sharp teeth. I shook. Too late to tell him
the little flames he'd seen were the work of Mother's mirror.

The dragon closed his eyes then opened them
slowly like curtains parting to a fiery chamber. "Who is to say you don't
have hidden wings?"

I huffed, but it made me wonder how grand it
would have been to have a curse like that.
Wings instead of
my old claw.
Then my mother would have said I had the blood of a kestrel
or perhaps a fairy. None would have died for me, but there would have been
great pride in my gift.

The sunset sky was poppy colored, and a cool
wind chilled my damp back. Faul tossed the stone in the air and caught it

much
the way I'd seen the gamblers do with their coins at
the fair.

"I'd have to be a simpkin to hurl myself
from here," I said. "You dove for the pips and just in time. But you
may not—" I bit my lip considering the pips' new skill. With the mastery
of
their wings, their hunting skills would
be fool simple. And hadn't
the pips nearly outgrown the need for bitter
milk now?

I tried to run back from the edge, but Lord
Faul blocked me with his tail. His eyes turned poppy colored and were
all-devouring.

"We should go back
to
...
to the cave," I sputtered. "I've got
bitter drink to
boil."

Lord Faul kept me in his gaze. I saw my own
reflection standing in his slit pupils: hair matted as a crow's nest, face
pale, slender as a boy.

"The milkweed's all in a pile and I
haven't sorted through it
yet,"
I said. I was trying not to
tremble but my body shook like a baby's rattle.

Lord Faul did not move
nor
answer, and it seemed
he smiled.
At last he said, "Do you value your life,
Briar?"

"I want to live!"

He knocked me from the cliff.

I fell screaming, thrashing in the air. The
pips below howled
along with me. Just
before I hit the water, Faul's claw caught me,
crushed my ribs, and
plunged me in the churning pool. He pulled me to the surface. I sucked in air,
the shore spinning like a top. Then he dunked me again. Biting cold water
swirled round my flesh. He held me under and I thrashed. Faul's golden

belly
above me, rocks below where my
feet kicked. My breath left
me in
bubbles. No air to suck, my chest nearly burst. I tore at his claw like a
prisoner would the dungeon bars.

Then up! I hung sputtering until Faul tossed
me on the shore, saying, "You've had your bath!"

Kadmi ambled over and sniffed my hair.
"She smells no better for it."

My "bath" transformed my gown. Held
together so long by the grime, it tore in fourteen places as I dried myself by
the fire that night. A maid with any pride does not show her nakedness to
others, thus after our meal, as the pips talked on about their first brave
flight, I broke a bone from the fish, pulled a pink thread from my cloak, and
tied it to the little rib.

Wrapped naked in my cloak, I laid my
threadbare gown across my knees. The blue cloth, stained orange from pip piss,
would be all a patchwork of pips' molting. Patch on patch, I covered the tears
with dragon scales.

Across from the mellow
fire the dragon picked fish flesh from
his teeth with the tip of his talon. "See how Briar
steals from others to ease her life," said Faul. He scratched a tooth and
spat. The
fire hissed. "Humans are
born stripped.
No pelt nor
scales to cover them, they
must steal another's skin to make their own."

I said nothing but stitched and stitched,
hoping Faul would not start another history lesson. He'd schooled the pips well
when he thought I was away, but I'd gleaned bits of his teaching now and again.
I'd not known until this year how many times human kings and queens had signed
treaties protecting the dragons' ancient hunting lands, only to turn about,
take up arms, and

drive
them from their valleys and high mountain dwellings,
so now the dragons hid in but a few small scattered islands.

Lord Faul's anger rose
every time he spoke of men's betrayal,
and
in truth, I didn't blame him. I'd found small comfort know
ing a few humans were trusted: mages like Merlin
and his follow
ers who'd worked to keep the treaties binding but not won
out.

Pink thread to blue scale, I mended my gown
as the dragons
talked, wishing I were
invisible. The tears were many so I covered
all the cloth with scales. I was sure there was nothing in the world
like
it.

"Tell us again how humans misused our
gift of fire to forge weapons," grumbled Kadmi.

"No,"
called Chawl.
"Tell us about the time people enslaved the DragonLord, pulled out all his
teeth, and cut off every talon!"

Ore
jumped up.
"And then how brave Kazrol burned all the
castle guards to rescue him."

"And ate the jailers!" added Eetha.

"We won that battle sure," said
Faul. "But in that year we lost more of our lands to men."

"I hate humans!" said Chawl, adding
his lire to the flames in the pit.

"And I!" said
Kadmi, Eetha, and Ore. All were breathing flames. I backed away from the heat.

"Sit, Briar!"
ordered Faul. Down I flopped, grasping my little
log for support.

"It's good you hate humans," said
Faul proudly to the pips. "Keep your bitterness toward them. Know them for
what they are: liars, murderers, and thieves."

"What about her?" asked Chawl,
pointing to
me.

Faul's yellow eyes were
like a fiery chamber. "Briar is kept
honest
by her dragon's blood," he said.

"How did she come to be our kind?"
asked Eetha.

"Egg stealing," said Faul, his
words so harsh I dropped my needle. "And think on this, pips," he
said. "If this had not been so, you would have had an older sister."

"A sister?" said Eetha, coming to a
stand, her bright gold belly catching the light of the fire.

"Aye!
But a witch stole our fertile
egg for the queen to drink.
Do you see
what usurpers humans are? They steal another's pips if they cannot make their
own!"

Now the pips were all around me, smoke
spilling from their snouts.

"Hold out your claw!" said Eetha.

"No." I hid my hand behind my back.

"Hold it out to me!"

"What for?
You've seen it often enough."

"Bring it out!" said Ore, and the shock of the smallest one speaking to me so made me draw it out.

I held out my scaly
claw. Uncut by Mother's knife these long
months,
the black-nailed talon had grown out full and pointing, sharp as a blacksmith's
nail.

Eetha flicked out her tongue and kissed my
claw.

"This was our sister," she said.

I awoke that night bathed in sweat, having
dreamed of Kye. In my sleep I saw him standing on the dock, just as it was the
first