Bones of the Dragon

by Margaret Weis

  One less Ugly One in the world, his mother would have said.

  Wulfe walked across the deck and then stopped to stare in blank dismay at the island on which he lived.

  The island that was nothing but a black blotch on a starlit horizon. The moonlit ocean lay between Wulfe and his home.

  The dragonship had sailed and taken the boy with it.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Wulfe stared across the silvered sea in dismay. His home was gone, vanishing beyond sight.

  “Stop!” Wulfe cried frantically, turning to the dragon. “You have to take me back. I’m not supposed to be here! I—Ulp!”

  The words caught in his throat. He ducked behind one of the sea chests and crouched there, quaking. He was not alone. A woman stood beside the rudder, guiding the ship into the gentle wind.

  This had to be the woman who boarded the ship with the druids, the woman Wulfe had overheard speaking to the elder. He had thought she left with the elder, but apparently not.

  She looked like she sounded—stern and cold and severe. Wulfe was reminded of the time his mother had taken him to meet his grandmamma. He had been only three, yet he remembered his grandmamma vividly. She was radiant and beautiful and terrible. She had made his mother cry. She had made him cry. There was the same sort of something about this woman—something beautiful and terrible. She frightened the boy more than did the Ugly One who lay dying below.

  Wulfe was in agony. He was afraid to stay where he was, and he was afraid to move. The woman seemed absorbed in either her task or her thoughts. Her gaze was fixed, abstracted. Wulfe decided to chance it. Crawling on all fours (he could move exceptionally quickly that way), he scampered across the deck and once more dived down into the hold. Landing soft-footed at the bottom, he kept very still, his ears stretched, listening for some sound that the woman was in pursuit.

  Hearing only the sighing of the wind, he looked upward. A sliding trapdoor could be drawn across the hatch’s opening, closing it. Wulfe wondered if he dared. The woman might hear him. He decided to risk it. He stood precariously balanced on a rung of the ladder, reached up, and carefully and cautiously, using the tip ends of his fingers, slid the trapdoor shut.

  The hold was now dark and snug, giving Wulfe the comforting impression of being in a den. He crept over to check on the Ugly One. Wulfe squatted on his haunches, his chin on his knees, and regarded the young man in frowning consternation. Wulfe had often accompanied the druids when they tended the sick, for he had some skills in the art of healing. Since he was skilled in nothing else, the druids had encouraged him in this pursuit.

  Wulfe had seen death before, and this Ugly One was dying. He burned with fever; his wounds were festering. His body twitched and jerked. He moaned in pain, and once, to Wulfe’s alarm, he gave a great shout. Wulfe tried to hush him, for he feared the woman would hear and come to investigate. She did not come—either she didn’t hear or she didn’t care. Night deepened; the Ugly One grew steadily worse.

  Wulfe pondered. He had the power to save the young man. His skills in magic were considerable. They were also, unfortunately, erratic, sometimes ending in disaster. There was another problem. The druids had forbidden him to use his magic.

  “Just because you can do a thing does not mean you should,” the elder had told him. “You do not understand these skills you possess, Wulfe. Are they a gift or a curse? You can do good, that is true. Sadly, you have also done great harm. Thus, until you understand how to exert control over this wayward power you possess, it is better that you do not use it.”

  Wulfe was in a quandary. He was afraid of the Ugly One, who carried iron and stank of death. Yet Wulfe felt a strange sort of kinship for him. Like Wulfe, the young man appeared to be beset by his own inner daemons.

  The druids taught that the soul leads an existence separate from the body. When the body sleeps, the soul travels to a twilight realm where it lives and loves and does all sorts of strange and wonderful things. But while beautiful, this realm was also dangerous. Souls were sometimes lost in the twilight realm. Unable to find their way out, they never returned and the body died. That was why one must never wake a person who was dreaming or sleepwalking, for fear the soul would not find its way back.

  Daemons populated this twilight realm, taking the form of people known in life. Wulfe knew that for a fact. He often saw his father in the twilight realm, when his father had died long ago. These daemons were now besetting the Ugly One.

  The young man begged someone called Draya to forgive him. He fought a daemon named Horg, and he groped about for his sword. This terrified Wulfe. He would have tossed the hideous weapon overboard, only he could not bear to touch it. Fearing the Ugly One would find the sword, which lay on the deck near him, Wulfe threw a blanket over it. Then he crept into a corner of the hold and stayed there until the Ugly One’s battle with the daemons ended.

  The Ugly One sank into a stupor. Wulfe was torn. He was afraid of the young man, afraid of the sword. At the same time, he pitied him. He was in such terrible pain. It occurred to Wulfe that if the Ugly One died, the dragonship might sail on and on forever, and Wulfe would never see his home again. He couldn’t decide what to do, and while he argued with himself this way and that, he fell asleep.

  Wulfe woke to find the sun peeking in through chinks in the planks. To his astonishment, the Ugly One was still alive. Wulfe cautiously slid open the trapdoor a crack and peeked out. If the woman was still there, he would gather his courage and tell her the young man was dying and that the druids could help him and would she please ask the dragon to take him home.

  The woman was gone. The rudder had been lashed in place, keeping the ship on a steady course. Wulfe searched the deck as best he could from his vantage point and did not see her. He was about to climb onto the deck, when he caught sight of the dragon’s angry eye swiveling in his direction. Wulfe hurriedly ducked back down into the hold. He did not go up on deck again.

  He found food and water, and he ate and drank and tended to the Ugly One as best he could, bathing his hot flesh and forcing water down his throat and spreading a potion he found on the wounds.

  None of that helped. The Ugly One grew steadily worse. He no longer sat up or cried out. His breathing was labored; his heartbeat was weak. Wulfe could barely feel a pulse. The young man’s soul was far from his body and roving farther still.

  The only way to save him was for Wulfe to use his magic. The cure might kill him, but the young man was dying anyway. Wulfe was more afraid of the druids finding out that he’d broken their rules.

  Wulfe decided to risk it. Hoping he didn’t do anything terrible, such as turn the young man inside out (Wulfe had mistakenly done this to a girl’s pet cat once—a horrible experience for all concerned), Wulfe put his hand over the young man’s heart and began to sing to him.

  The song Wulfe sang in a thin and wavering voice was a song his mother had sung to him.

  He had only vague memories of his mother. A woman lovelier than the dawn, she had smelled of laurel and rosemary and violet. She was clothed in gossamer and moonlight. Her long golden hair, which went to her feet, was spangled with dewdrops. He had never seen her by day, only by night, when she came to dance with him and laugh with him, hold him and weep over him. At such times, the wolves who were his guardians would throw back their heads and wail in sorrow.

  His mother sang songs to him, over and over until the songs became a part of him, like his blood and his bones and his skin.

  “The Ugly Ones will seek to harm you, because you are not one of them,” his mother had whispered to him again and again. “I cannot be there to protect you, but so long as you remember the songs of your people, the Ugly Ones cannot hurt you.”

  Wulfe had told the elder what his mother had said. The elder had looked very sad and said that, although his mother meant well, she should not have given him such a dangerous gift. At that time, Wulfe didn’t understand what the druid meant by the songs being dangerous. He had come to un
derstand a little when he’d sung his songs to the poor sick cat.

  Wulfe sang one of his mother’s songs to the dying young man. His mother would not have approved, for the young man was one of those very Ugly Ones who would try to harm him. The druid would not approve, for such magic was dangerous, and Wulfe couldn’t control it.

  It seemed Wulfe could never make anyone happy.

  The song dated back to the time when his mother’s people dwelt happily in a darkness lit only by the light of distant stars. A time before the first gods came to banish the starlight with bright, fierce fire and give the rulership of nature to fleshy, hairy creatures who had crawled out of the swamps and now walked upright on two legs. These creatures termed themselves “men,” and they were big and gross and ugly, and they used fire to make iron and used iron to kill.

  Wulfe knew the meaning of the words in his heart, though not his head. Sometimes the words were joyous and sometimes cruel. They were funny and hideous and beautiful and shining. They were not afraid, for when the songs were first sung, there had been nothing to fear. The fear had come later.

  Wulfe sang and pressed his hand over the Ugly One’s heart and hoped fervently that he would not turn the young man inside out. He breathed a sigh of relief to see the flesh remaining on the outside of the bones, where it belonged. The song seemed to work. The Ugly One drew a deep and easeful breath. His life’s blood tinged his face. The lines of pain smoothed away. His skin grew cool to the touch and beaded with sweat. The fever had broken.

  The Ugly One flung his arm over his forehead and slept deeply. His soul was still in the twilight realm, but he was no longer doing battle. Wulfe pictured his soul walking through pleasant meadows filled with flowers.

  Wulfe was pleased with himself. The Ugly One would sleep a long time, and that would be good for him. Wulfe huddled down in the nest he’d made for himself among the blankets and whispered a thank-you to his mother. Thinking of her, he wondered sadly why she never came to sing to him anymore.

  The boy missed her. He missed the elder. He missed his home. He felt so lost and alone that he began to cry, something he had not done since he was four years old and the druids had taken him from his father and the wolves who had been his family.

  When Skylan woke, he was content to simply lie drowsily among the blankets, reveling in the warmth of the bed. He recognized his surroundings. He was in the hold of his Venjekar.

  His contentment did not last long.

  Memory returned, crashing into him like ogres crashing into the shield-wall. Memory, like ogres, stabbed him with sharp swords.

  Warriors who suffered cracked skulls almost never remembered the blow or even the battle. Unfortunately, Skylan remembered everything. He saw his young warriors transformed into rabbits. He saw Draya’s gruesome death.

  Skylan wished his eyes might have been gouged out before he saw that horrible sight, one he knew he would keep on seeing for as long as he lived.

  He felt the ship’s motion and realized they had set sail. He wondered who was sailing the ship. The Dragon Kahg would never permit an enemy to seize the ship. Perhaps druids had released Skylan’s men from their enchantment. His men were taking him home.

  Weak in mind and body, Skylan accepted this notion and drifted back to sleep. When he woke again, he saw the boy.

  He was a strange-looking boy, thin and sinewy, with a thatch of shaggy hair. The boy was pouring water from a jug into a drinking horn, and he had his back to Skylan. Propping himself up on his elbows, Skylan stared at him.

  “Who in the name of Freilis are you?” Skylan demanded.

  The boy sucked in a hissing breath. Whipping around, he flung the drinking horn at Skylan’s head and fled, scampering up the ladder and disappearing.

  Skylan wiped water from his face and licked it from his parched lips. He gazed up the ladder, trying to catch a glimpse of the strange boy. When the boy did not return, Skylan called out to him.

  “No need to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Skylan heard the lapping of the waves against the hull and nothing more, and he realized something was not right. He should have heard his men tramping about the deck. The silence made him uneasy. Who was sailing the ship? He coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again.

  “I can’t hurt you, if it comes to that,” he told the boy ruefully. “I am weak as watered ale.”

  The boy returned, hovering in the hatchway. He had yellow eyes the likes of which Skylan had never seen in a human, and he stared at Skylan distrustfully from beneath crudely cut bangs. He did not speak.

  “What is your name?” Skylan asked.

  “Names are powerful,” the boy countered. “Tell me yours first.”

  He cautiously descended to the topmost rung of the ladder, but would come no farther.

  “Skylan Ivorson,” Skylan answered. He was about to add proudly, “Chief of Chiefs of the Vindrasi,” but that wouldn’t sound well coming from a man lying naked in his own filth on sweat-soaked blankets. A man too weak to pour himself a cup of water.

  The boy hesitated, then mumbled something.

  “I couldn’t hear. Did you say ‘wolf’?” Skylan asked.

  “Wulfe,” the boy repeated loudly, annoyed.

  “Wulfe,” Skylan said, pronouncing the name as the boy did. “Would you tell one of my men to come down here?”

  Wulfe shrugged. “There aren’t any men. Only the dragon. And maybe the woman.”

  “This is no time for jests,” Skylan said sharply. “Someone is sailing this ship. I don’t know how you came to be aboard, but now that you’re here, send my men down to me at once!”

  Wulfe shrugged again. He was dressed in robes like the druids wore, too large for his small frame, and when he shrugged, the opening for his neck slid down around his shoulder.

  “I told you. There are no men. The druids brought you on board and left. The dragon made the ship sail away, taking me with it. I didn’t want to go,” Wulfe added in aggrieved tones.

  “Then who is sailing the ship?” Skylan demanded.

  “The dragon!” Wulfe cried. “I keep telling you that! Please ask him to take me home.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” said Skylan, annoyed. He thought the boy was making all this up.

  “I don’t think the dragon likes me,” Wulfe said sulkily. “I asked him if I could come on board, and he didn’t say I couldn’t. But now he glares at me whenever I go up on deck.”

  “You’re telling me you can see the dragon, speak to him?” Skylan frowned in disbelief.

  Wulfe’s eyes widened in fright, and he edged back toward the ladder. “I didn’t know that was wrong! Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, of course not,” Skylan said. “It’s not wrong, exactly. It’s just . . . odd. The only person who can speak to the dragon is a Bone Priestess. And even she cannot see the dragon until he answers the summons.”

  Skylan still thought the boy was pretending, playing make-believe.

  “Tell me, Wulfe, what does the dragon look like?”

  “He looks like a dragon,” said Wulfe.

  “Describe him,” said Skylan, thinking he would hear some outlandish tale.

  “He has blue scales, and his mane is the color of sea foam and his crest is like the moon glade on the water I saw the other night. And his eyes are red and horrid.”

  Skylan was astonished. Wulfe had accurately described the Dragon Kahg in his water form, down to the last scale. Here was a mystery.

  The boy had to be telling the truth, incredible as it seemed. The Dragon Kahg had the power to sail the ship on his own if he chose. Skylan remembered watching the ship sail off with Horg’s corpse, and he shuddered. Perhaps the Dragon Kahg was carrying Skylan to his grave! Planning to dump his body where neither man nor gods could find it.

  “Do you hurt somewhere?” Wulfe crept down another rung.

  Skylan shook his head. Weak in mind and body, he turned his head into the pillow to hide his grief.

 
He heard bare feet patter down the rungs of the ladder and felt a hand timidly touch his shoulder. Skylan lifted his head, and Wulfe sprang back.

  “You should drink.” The boy held the horn at arm’s length.

  Skylan took the drinking horn and gulped the water thirstily and handed it back. He lay quiet a moment, wondering if he had the strength to rise. He didn’t have a choice. He had to find out what was going on.

  “I need to go up on deck.”

  Wulfe clutched the empty drinking horn to his chest. “Will you ask the dragon to take me home?”

  Skylan gave a bleak smile. “I must first ask the dragon where he is taking me. You said the druids brought me on board. They must have brought you, as well. Why did they leave you here?”

  Wulfe flushed and shook his head. “The elder didn’t know I was on the ship. I sneaked on. I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. The dragonship was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen. Now I hate it,” he added sullenly.

  “Can you help me up the ladder to the deck?”

  Wulfe eyed him suspiciously. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to try to find out where we are—”

  “I can tell you that. We’re on the ocean.”

  “If I can see landmarks and the position of the sun, I’ll know where we are on the ocean,” said Skylan.

  Wulfe seemed to think this over and decide it made sense. He gingerly slid his arm beneath Skylan’s shoulder. The boy was surprisingly strong. He helped Skylan stand.

  Everything tilted and wobbled. Skylan shut his eyes and clung to Wulfe and waited for the dizziness to pass.