“Yes,” Gray said. “It is no shame, dread lord, to be destroyed by another’s pain, for that, I have observed, is what causes most of us the worst suffering. But I am not dismayed by my own. Dear to me, oh, so dear to me, is the fragile envelope of flesh I wear. But even fairer is my honor!”
And so saying, he plunged forward and down into the fire.
I remember thinking, Yes, he’s right. That’s the best way. But the time of thought is nothing, and I followed.
Gray felt the fall. At first it seemed the fangs of a hundred serpents tore at his flesh. He was unable to imagine a fire pit with no bottom, but this was one. As he drove down through the fire snakes, they tried to seize him, but failed. He saw darkness rushing at him. He knew she had pitched herself over the edge behind him, but then she was a worthy descendant of ancient queens. So he knew death was not far away. He had a second to mourn his loss, but when he slammed into the darkness, he found it water. Why? Then he thought, surprised, I will drown.
But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure how long he held his breath, but he was swept along by a current that sucked him down and down. Then he broke the surface and felt air on his skin. So, not knowing what else to do, he breathed. He seemed to spend an eternity in darkness, but at last it was as if something spat him out.
He saw the water was green and filled with silver shapes. Fish? No, dolphins. He struggled toward the light. His head cleared the surface, and above he saw spires of clouds glowing in the late afternoon sun. One of the dolphins nudged him forward, and he saw a line of cliffs in the distance. He struggled. The salt water stung his body in a thousand places. He could see from only one eye, and he knew the Lord of the Dead had maimed him, but he was a kind that does not willingly die. He began, pain or not, to swim toward the shore.
Something strange loomed before him. He reached out to push it away and felt wood. A large, heavy piece of tree swept out to sea by a storm. He embraced it with more fervor than he ever embraced a woman. The tide was at the flood. He rode it to shore. He found himself beached in a cove on the very strand along which they had fled the boar. Above the tide line, the tracks belonging to the three of them marked the sand. The boar had left no tracks, but then all things considered, this wasn’t surprising.
Thirst tortured him, and a multitude of wounds, scoured by sand and salt water. All he wanted to do was lie still and be left alone. So he lay for a long time, trying to gather strength to rise and search for water. It was his greatest need. He heard a rush of wings and saw a raven land next to him. He recognized the bird. It had a lot of pinfeathers. She had lost quite a bit of her plumage after Dugald chased her off to Ireland, and it was growing back.
She squawked, “Gray.”
“In the flesh,” he croaked back. “You illegitimate, louse-ridden, misbegotten terror of a bird. You leave my good eye alone, or I’ll see you in the stew pot—”
“I believe he is alive,” someone said.
When he looked up, Dugald and Maeniel were standing over him.
“For once she is innocent,” Maeniel said. “She saw you and led us to you.”
Dugald gave him some water. “Where have you been and where is Guinevere?”
Gray gulped the water. “Telling you that would take more strength than I have now. We were taken to the house of the dead, and she departed in the same manner and in the same direction as I did. I hope she can swim.”
“She can,” Maeniel said, “and she swims well. I know. I taught her.”
“Good,” Gray said. “I landed in the sea some little way off the coast. A floating log brought me in. Lift me up and I will show you. I’m half blind. I can’t see from here. Is my eye gone?”
Dugald examined him closely. “No, the side of your face is swollen and there is a cut on the eyelid. I am not the Lord Christ, but I can help.” He rested his hand on the side of Gray’s face, and some healing was done. The swelling went down a little.
When Gray realized he had two good eyes, he fainted.
Dugald drew back. “I see we will get no more from him.”
Maeniel was pointing out to sea. “Look, Dugald, the dragons. I never saw so many—not in one place before.”
Dugald rose and placed Gray’s head gently down on the sand. “You evil bird.” He addressed Magetsky. “Stay away from his hurts.”
She soared and aimed a squirt at him, but didn’t quite dare hit him. It landed on the sand nearby.
Maeniel laughed. “She won’t be wanting another journey to Ireland.”
Then Dugald looked where Maeniel pointed out to sea. “At least twenty, maybe more. I didn’t know she was friends with them. You didn’t tell me they had met.”
“Yes, once,” Maeniel said. “When she was much younger. Once. I couldn’t see the harm in it.”
“No, no!” Dugald cried, wringing his hands. “No. They have her. There would not be so many otherwise. They have taken her. She is among them.” He tore at his beard. “No!”
“Old man,” Maeniel said, “you frighten me. What will they do with her? She’s like my daughter. I had thought she might take my son. She could come with us. Live free.”
“I cannot think,” Dugald cried. “And they are strange cattle—”
“Cattle?” Maeniel said. “If there is one thing they are not, it’s cattle.”
“I don’t know,” Dugald cried again, sinking to his knees beside Gray on the sand. “She was not to meet the dragons. And now I do not know.”
SEVEN
HE SURFACED AMONG THE DRAGONS, and there was no question of letting her go back to shore. One of the giants, a silver-maned beauty, simply came up under her, and she found herself seated on his back. A chorus of voices sounded in her mind as they greeted her with relief, joy, pleasure, and some indignation. It was hard to get a word in edgewise.
“My friends,” she said, pointing to the shore.
“No,” the voice of the one she rode told her. “Your guardians have become careless. You were nearly lost to us. It never occurred to anyone that even Lord Dis would want Merlin in his debt. Only your courage and the man’s saved you both from lifetimes of pain.”
“I cannot think a man like Gray would have been a fate worse than death!” I was angry because I had never loved him so much than in that final moment before the dark lord. I had known him a brave man from the first when he, not Bain, the leader, led the war band down to the pirates.
“No, they cannot protect you. You will not leave us for the present.”
“Then tell me if he is alive, as I am.”
“He is, and on the beach with your friends. They will care for him.”
“I hope so,” I said, looking back.
I could see a few figures clustered on the sand in the distance before we sailed into a fog bank and the wild cliffs and shingle shores of my home were lost to view. It was then that I realized how tired, sore, and drained I was. I threw my arms around the dragon’s neck and rested my head against the slightly rough skin.
In the natural world it was evening, and my depleted body had no defense against the coming night’s cold. “I wish you would let me go ashore,” I said. “I could make a fire and get warm, and I’m so hungry.”
“Presently!” was the terse reply.
I could hear them talking about me among themselves, and they, too, were worried about where to take me—at least for this evening.
“I suggest we try to make the gates.” This was from Silver Mane, the one I was riding.
“No.” The voice was female and rather warm and low in tone. “There’s a squall out to sea, and while I don’t think it will move inshore, we are headed for some high, rough waves. We might not make the gates much before midnight. She’s a land creature and not equipped to defend herself against the cold night air.”
“What do the dolphins say?” another one of the pod questioned.
Music danced across my mind, and I saw rising waves with deep troughs, purple, green, and black in the failing light.
“I vote for the is
land,” the female voice said.
“I don’t like it,” Silver Mane said. “On that island something remains. They were powerful in their day.”
“But would have nothing to do with Dis, I’ll bet,” the female voice contributed.
“That’s true,” Silver Mane agreed. “Tomorrow we can swim to the gates and take her to a place of real comfort.”
“Listen,” one of the other dragons commanded. “Listen. One of the great blue whales is singing.”
And again music floated into my mind. It told of a land frozen summer and winter alike. Of bergs drifting, glittering like diamonds in an all-too-brief sunlight; of bears white as the snow packs over which they hunted; birds that didn’t fly but swam, insulated by their feathers in an almost frozen sea; of shrimp so thick the water was almost a soup. This is the harshest, yet richest, ocean of the world. Then the song ended with a vision of the sunset far out to sea, with rills of light on the water.
“Is it not lovely?” the female voice asked.
It took me a moment to realize she was speaking to me. “Yes,” I answered. “Do they all sing? All the sea creatures?”
“Yes,” she said. “And all have different songs. We, the dragons as you call us, have our own. You are very tired, little one. Hold on to my husband tight, and we will take you to our island. It belongs only to us and the birds now. The most recent inhabitant was a hermit from the great foundation of Iona. He sought the love of God, union with the love of God, and we think he found it. Then he returned home to his brethren, there to die, be buried, because if he was one with God, he was one with them also, and he wished to take joy in their faces before he set out on his last voyage alone.”
Then I heard the cries of seabirds, and a shadow loomed up through the fog. The dragon, Silver Mane, came on land, moving up the beach using his flippers the way a turtle would. The wind from the sea blew away some of the fog; and beyond the beach, in a grove of white birches, I saw the beehive hut of the anchorite. It was half buried in the new blooming gorse bushes, and the yellow flowers were sun-gold against the grayness.
He had kept a garden near the hut, and while the vegetables were gone, the wild rose, grown for its hips, stretched over the top of the stone hut, and sage and rosemary bloomed near the door. Briar vines were twined among the birch trunks and were covered with flowers as the night sky is sprinkled with stars.
“Nothing larger than a bird lives on this island. Here you may sleep in peace,” Silver Mane said. He moved rather well, I thought, on land, but it was obvious he didn’t care for it, because he went back to the water as quickly as he could.
The first order of business was to build a fire. The beach was filled with driftwood, and there were many deadfalls among the trees.
As you know, I have no problem lighting a fire. Then I took a torch and investigated the hut.
It had a bed of sorts, with an animal-hide webbing, and there was a package in a cowhide pouch near the bed. I opened it and found a fine, soft gray blanket. There were two stone crocks against one wall. They had tight-fitting lids, and one still held salt, the other honey, now hard and crystallized. The blanket I placed on the webbing. There was enough to cover the webbing, then turn to cover me.
“How is this possible?” I asked the dragons, because I could hear them off the beach in the water, speaking in low voices to each other.
“He made it of thistle fiber,” she said. “It is some of the strongest and longest wearing of fibers in nature, but it takes a long time to gather, and still longer to weave. Immersed as he was in the love of God and the beauty of the world, the holy man cared nothing for time and had the patience to weave the silk of spiders and decorate it with the scales of a butterfly’s wing. He left it here, since he would not need it any longer, so that if some troubled wanderer found it, it would serve to warm him as it warmed its maker long ago.”
It was dark by then. The dragons tossed a big fish ashore. I made a cutting stone, cleaned the fish, then cooked it on heated stones in the pit near the fire and fell to. I ate every scrap. I had in my whole life never been so hungry. Then I finished another one, this one wrapped in seaweed and seasoned with both salt and the crystals of honey.
I don’t remember repairing to the bed in the hut and wrapping myself in the blanket, but I must have, because I woke in the night hearing voices but not understanding what they were saying. For a moment, I was confused. Then I remembered the dragons. I must be overhearing the sounds of the conversation as they fished among the waves. So I slept again.
When I awakened, I lay quiet, looking at the gray light through the door of the hut. The blanket was warm and had a good smell of dried herbs about it—rosemary, sage, and something more elusive, lavender. Kyra had been keen to teach me herb lore, and I learned about it, as well as cooking, from her. The Gray Watcher taught me to hunt with the stone knife I had made to clean the fish last night. I thought I’d been lucky in my friends and companions. They had taught me to make my way anywhere.
Are you awake?
The query was in my mind. “Yes,” I said. Then I rose and folded the blanket, replacing it in its cowhide pouch.
I was thirsty. Last night it hadn’t bothered me. There was moisture in the fish, and I had swallowed more water than I wanted while being swept down the underground river from the halls of Dis. But now I felt thirst, and I wondered if there was fresh water on the island. I asked, because I found if I didn’t project my thought, the dragons wouldn’t hear me.
“There is a terrible storm rising,” Silver Mane said.
I hurried out of the hut and saw the sun rising in a sea of flame.
Then his wife’s voice joined his. “We must swim out to sea. To remain this close to shore could well mean our deaths. We could be dashed against the rocks and killed.”
I dithered a moment. The danger was great. Summer storms can be fierce. If I journeyed with the dragons, I might be swept from my perch on Silver Mane’s back. And drowned. They would be hard put to save themselves in the towering seas, but this island might not be safe either. By day I could see that it was saddle-shaped, narrow and low in the middle, but with high, rocky cliffs on either end. The monk had located his hut a little above the lowest portion, to one side of the center, where trees and shrubs grew. But at the lowest point in the center, I could clearly see a rocky, sandy trench, overgrown with salt-loving plants—samphire, and thorny yellow-flowered herb—interspersed with wild sea grass, whose heads bowed to the wind now beginning to gust wildly. Another copse of birch and willow clothed the rocks that rose steeply to the cliff.
“If you will come with us into the maelstrom, come now,” Silver Mane commanded.
“This is a killer storm,” his wife said. “The whales are in it, and they sounded to escape the fierce blast. It is no natural storm. This Merlin hunts you, and he will throw all his power against you, wherever you are.”
“Then flee,” I said. “I am a land creature. I can shelter in the rocks up there.”
“Are you sure?” Silver Mane asked.
“Yes.”
I dashed back to the hut to pick up the hide pouch with the blanket.
“Whatever you both do,” Silver Mane’s wife said, “do it quickly.”
The rising sun had been extinguished by sooty thunderheads on the horizon, and waves began to pound the beach hard. When I ran back out into the open, the two dragons were already swimming away.
Which end of the island? I looked to one side. The cliff seemed almost sheer. On the other side, a gradual slope led up the cliff. I turned to go that way and saw Mother. I stopped, gasped, and my eyes teared. She seemed to rise out of the sea itself.
A gray wave lifted, arched; and the form at the top curled into a wolf’s head, back, and shoulder. She sprang clear of the breaking sea, falling water melting into paws, then a plumed tail, and ran toward me. I saw the direction in the lines of her body. This way, and she led me to the steeper cliff. I followed without question, through a giant rock gard
en where wildflowers grew in mad profusion, their colors burning against the pervasive grayness of granite and the rising storm. Hawthorn, purple vetch, blue cornflowers, yellow cowslip, and marsh marigold.
Mother bounded from rock to rock over what seemed an enchanted carpet, until she reached the cliff. And here there was a stair. I was afraid and the wind was already battering me, but I could see human hands had chipped out this stair, even though the heavy spring growth seemed ready to choke it. Pliant willows and hawthorn canes were rooted between the stones and covered with starlike flowers; rowan and holly with its thorny green leaves were dug down into it on either side, and brambles coiled across the inner face of the risers.
The steps were deeply worn by the passage of many feet; the hollows filled with moss and lichen. How long? I was able to think as I followed Mother up and up, until we reached a well at the top. The well looked as though some mighty force had tried to blast it into ruins. I could see the wall of rock. Behind and around the rock was blackened, burned by the fury of the assault. It was clear that in some places the stones themselves had melted in the heat directed at them. I knew no force more powerful than lightning or more dangerous than fire, so I wondered what it might have been. Then I reached the well curb itself. It was made of volcanic glass of the kind you see on the vitrified forts and flints created in volcanic earthly fires, yet the water still ran.
All this must have happened long ago. How long ago I couldn’t begin to imagine, because the detritus of the attack was deeply stained, pitted by the erosion of centuries, dotted with lichen, gray-green and gold, and thick with the wiry stems and lacy fronds of bracken and the clear emerald velvet of moss. The water trickled in a steady stream from the shattered cliff face and fell down, down, below the well curb into darkness, where I heard the steady plunk of the stream where it vanished into the rocks.
On the other side of the well, a tree trunk poked up through a crack in the stone. Or perhaps the tree made the crack, because it was very old and the marble and granite stones through which it grew were pushed back by the strong, twisted roots that erupted through them. The wind was no longer gusting. It was blowing a gale now; and as I looked out to sea, I saw the sunrise, purple, red, and gold, leaping like a conflagration among the soot-stained clouds of the rising storm. I suppose I was afraid, but now I cannot remember the fear, only the beauty and the exultation, and I did not have to be told this was a place of magic.
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