The Dragon Queen

by Alice Borchardt

  Mother had paused on the other side of the broken well curb. “Drink,” she said.

  I leaned over the well, the darkness below, and pressed my lips to the mossy trickle of water that ran down into the well. I will never forget the taste of that water. Only a few drops completely satisfied my thirst, and I felt I had been given the fairest beverage I had ever had. The water tasted of morning, of the few moments between the glow on the horizon and sunrise. And of the violet light of evening when weariness and a sense of accomplishment fill the soul. Of summer, when the smell of new-mown hay is heavy on the wind, and of winter midnights, when the air is still and the stars are a fountain of light.

  The wind had, it seemed, ceased to blow, and I knew I stood outside time. And then I saw her.

  She is the Flower Bride. The tree clinging to the cliff on the other side of the well was a quince, and she seemed—no, was—formed of the flowers. Blue eyes the color of the martin’s breast; long dark hair, brown as the quince’s bark; and skin pale, creamy white, and brushed with the merest hint of flame like the flowers. Mother sat at her feet, and one hand rested on Mother’s head. She looked at me with the detached assurance of an immortal gazing at one of the creatures of time. I tore my eyes away from her face and looked down into Mother’s. I felt her love.

  “Up,” she told me.

  I saw another stair, this one choked with winter-burned blackberry vines and barren gorse bushes. It led to a shelter in an overhang at the top of the cliff.

  “I don’t know if I can get through,” I said.

  Mother grinned—as much as a wolf can grin—tongue lolling, eyes sparkling. “Burn your way through,” she said. “No fire of yours can harm anything of hers.”

  The Flower Bride smiled.

  Then the wind was a shriek in my ears, and both Mother and the guardian of the well were gone. Then I knew why they had come. Merlin’s use of Dis involved the kind of favors the powerful do for one another. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. But this time Merlin had laid it on the line, and if he failed to destroy me, the spell he used to call the storm would rebound on him.

  Fire poured from my fingers into the dead wood that blocked the stair. It roared to life even though it was beginning to rain now. As the savage wind drove the outlying rain bands, they struck like whips lashing the island. In a flash the dead vines were a blazing mass, and then they were carried away by the blast, the first cold downdraft of the squall line moving in.

  I ran up, sometimes having to stop and cling to the stubs of bracken and briar the fire hadn’t touched as the wind tore at me, trying to fling me off the stair into the roaring sea below. Then I was at the top, under the overhang, the rain beginning to teem down. The approaching storm was a giant mass of cloud robed in gray veils of rain, ready to slam into the island. There was a hole in the rock wall at the overhang, and I went in like a snake, landing in a little cave carved by the wind and rain. It was no more than a hollow in the rock.

  I pulled the blanket out of its pouch, wrapped it around myself, and watched the storm rage. There was light in the cave, and I saw it came from a small hole in the roof, worn by ages of wind and rain. A vine—it must be getting enough light—covered one wall. Though the storm was at its height, no rain came in that way, and the cave was dry. Lightning flashed blindingly, dancing, it seemed, over the whole island. I rose and hurried away from the opening and pressed my back against the wall. I felt a shock. The air crackled with electricity. He was seeking me, even here.

  The scars on my fire hand flared green in the room, and I felt pain drawing my fingers into a claw. And I knew he was feeling for me. I edged away, my back against the wall, and the glow on my hand lessened. I felt the power extend itself toward me. I moved farther toward the vine and wall it clung to. Again the glow in my hand lessened, but by now I was under the light well, wedged into a corner next to the vine. The lightning flashed again, accompanied by an explosion of thunder so violent the walls shook. Outside, even over the roar of wind and rain, I heard the wild screams of the seabirds as lightning scorched the rock. My fire hand twisted and thrummed as though it had a life of its own. Fear and pain were a mix in my mind and body, the pain in my hand now so intense that it made me dizzy and nauseated. I staggered forward, and the pain grew less. I moved forward another pace, and the pain eased. I felt numb with relief. Again it struck, and I eased forward.

  Then I rasped, “What is happening?” He was trying to force me into the rain, and when I was clear of the doorway, the lightning would fry me where I stood.

  The fear of death is a wonderful and terrible thing. It sent me fleeing back to the wall, under the light well, near the vine. The pain struck again, and I understood my choices, because the palm of my fire hand was purple and the purple shaded away to blackness at the nails. My hand was dying. I had seen gangrene in the foot of a girl who had broken her ankle in the rocks while playing along the shore. The bone came out through the skin. The foot mortified, then died. Dugald and the chief took the leg with an ax. Dugald said it was the only way to save her life, and I knew I might have to take an ax to my right hand. I turned my face away, knowing that hand or no hand, I would not yield.

  Pain lashed at me again. This time I was sick all over the floor. The room darkened around me. You haven’t time, bastard, I thought, to kill me. I don’t know if you can kill my fire hand, but it won’t matter. I will—not—give—up. Then I was sick again.

  By then the storm was dying away. The lightning stopped and the rain came straight down, splashing on the opening I’d crawled through. I crouched down into a squat, thankful the pain had ended, cradling my right hand in my left while life crept back slowly into the fingers. Only knowing I had won and wondering what the cost would be to me and my attacker. At last I moved away from the spot where I’d vomited, crossed my legs, and sat with my back to the wall and closed my eyes. Color was coming back into my hand, and the fingers, while still purple, were no longer black.

  The staggering relief from intense pain and the soothing sound of the rain must have caused me to drift off to sleep.

  “Remarkable,” a voice said. It was masculine.

  “She has great courage,” a woman’s voice agreed. “I hope it is not wasted in one of their futile struggles. They are prone to folly.”

  “They? They? And what are we?”

  I woke then, frightened. My arm banged into the vine, and it stung me. Not badly, just so I moved away from it. The rain was ending and the light was better. I looked at the vine and found staring into my eyes the holes of a blackened skull.

  I slithered all the way across the room, until I was squatting near the opening. My arm gave me a pang. I looked down at it and saw the palm was pink, while the fingers were still pale and felt cold. I could move them well, and they looked to be returning to normal. Then I studied the wall the vine covered. I couldn’t be sure, but there were at least a dozen of them. Skulls, I mean. In some places the vine grew very thickly, hiding anything behind it, but in others I could see empty eye holes and teeth, and here and there a glint of metal.

  “Oh, how delicious, my dear,” the female voice said. “She has discovered us. I do so enjoy the look of consternation on their faces.”

  “Be quiet, Jetembo!” the man’s voice broke in. “I can’t, never could, delight in frightening children, and that’s what this one is—a child. Now, go away,” he addressed me. “We know you took shelter from the storm. It is ending. Leave. We and this place have nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with anything now—not really.” He sounded almost wistful.

  “Wait a minute!” The voice belonged to still a third, another woman. “I saw something rather unusual, Pome. I saw this child, as you call her, repel a magical attack of great viciousness. Someone, something in this miserable asshole corner of the universe, tried with great determination to kill her. I want to know more. This is the first interesting thing that’s happened in several thousand years, and you want to send her away?”

&nbs
p; “Merlin—chief druid of Britain—he wants me dead. This is the second attempt. He almost got me, and if you’re friends of his …” I began to edge closer to the cave mouth.

  “We are not,” the woman’s voice said. “Frankly, we wouldn’t bother with a slippery little backwoods practitioner like—like the Merlin.”

  “The Merlin?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes. The Merlin. It’s a post, an appointive one, I believe.”

  “Appointive?” I asked.

  “As opposed to hereditary,” she answered.

  “I wouldn’t mind knowing a few things myself,” I said mildly.

  “This is forbidden,” the one called Pome stated flatly.

  “Don’t be a fool,” the woman’s voice replied. “Mountain ranges have become hills since we came here, since we were put here—jungles, deserts, and land masses covered by seas. What does it matter what we say or to whom?”

  Pome sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “True, my dear,” the other woman, the first who had spoken, said. “But they are terribly dull conversationalists.”

  “Then go visit the dream, Jetembo. But don’t interfere. Now, tell me about your problem.”

  So I did, describing everything from the first—how I had been driven into the underworld by the boar, my friends, and my life. By this time the rain had subsided into a mist. And I finished my tale by asking a question of my own. “Who are you and what’s your name? I know that of your two friends, but I don’t know yours.”

  “We are—” She hesitated, then said, “slaves. That is the closest word to it in your tongue. We were left here by our captors to guard … something important. Our lives depended on our doing a good job, but like many slaves over the centuries, we revolted against our masters.”

  “Our punishment was to be entombed here—not living and unable to die,” the one called Jetembo snapped. She sounded as though even after so long she didn’t like to be reminded.

  “The vine?” I asked.

  “Oh, heavens,” Pome said. “I’d forgotten about children. They want to know everything. A plantavant,” he said. “It’s a plant with rudimentary consciousness, like an animal. It both imprisons and protects us. Don’t touch it, or it will hurt you.”

  “I think it already did,” I said.

  “Yes, but it can do much worse than just cause a little skin irritation. Don’t bother it again.” This was the answer given me by the first woman who spoke. “Now, as to your problem, I can give you only a little help, and that is advice. But it is probably fairly good, since I once was an adviser to rulers, kings, emperors, whatever you might call them. I myself devised the plan that brought me here.”

  “A foolish boast,” Pome said.

  “But not a vain one,” Jetembo said sternly. “The advice is fairly simple,” she continued. “You may not draw back now, but must—must—go forward; otherwise, you will die. Your enemy is determined to see you dead. The only way you and those you love can survive is to go forward.”

  “He includes even those I love in his fury?” I asked.

  “Yes,” was the second woman’s reply. “I felt the implacable hatred in his magic when he struck at you. He has failed, and that weakens a sorcerer, so you have some time. Where are these dragons taking you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I answered, bewildered.

  “Well, then, find a place and time on the shore when the wind is out to sea, and call me. I will respond. My name is Lais. Now go—for you are not allowed to remain here after the rain, and it is ending.”

  “I salute you, protectress of your people,” I said. “All honor to you and many thanks for shelter.”

  Then I turned and left. Indeed, she was right, for the clouds were breaking up, the remaining rain only a fine mist in the air. I hurried down the stair to the well. I paused again to sip the wonderful water, and then remembered I’d left the blanket up in the cave. But when I turned to look back, the stair was gone and only a few broken marble steps remained halfway up.

  And then I did flee, running hard until I reached the beach, where I found the dragons in the shallows, waiting.

  They delivered me to Tintigal at midnight, to the quay on which I was sure the Gray Watcher must have first set foot in Britain. The queen, Uther’s wife, Igrane, waited with her women, all wrapped in dark mantles against the cold. The dragons would not swim into the pool of torchlight surrounding them. As they told me during the journey, no other living creature is at peace with men. We have attained great power, and we use and abuse it in a casual manner. Knowing no laws but our own, we are a scourge to all the other great kingdoms of life. They might feel a friendship with me, but not with others of my kind.

  So I landed alone and began to walk toward the people waiting in the pool of torchlight. I was very tired and wanted nothing so much as a bath and my bed. The dragons told me Igrane and her ladies would receive me. I thought, with great longing, of Kyra and my friends Dugald and the Gray Watcher. I would have preferred to be with them or in the sweathouse with Kyra.

  Fog lay on the water, and indeed the dragons had stood out to sea, waiting for it to thicken before they would approach Tintigal.

  “Well, where is she?” I heard an arrogant voice demand.

  My whole body stiffened. I knew, but didn’t know how I knew, the voice belonged to Merlin. He—here? I couldn’t help but be frightened but at the same time curious about the man who hated and hunted me almost from the day of my birth. Then I heard Igrane’s rather tart reply.

  “You know they are afraid of you and your bowmen and won’t come near the lights.”

  “Dragons,” Merlin’s voice spat. “Am I to be persuaded of the existence of dragons, or is this simply one more deception in a long series of your deceptions?”

  Ah, well, I must make my entrance sometime. Why not now? I thought.

  “The dragons have come and gone,” I said, stepping into the light. “They brought me. I am Guynifar.”

  They were gathered in a semicircle around the torchbearers, Igrane at one end. She reminded me of some dark pillar, wrapped as she was in her mantle with a veil covering her head, only her pale face visible. Merlin stood at the other end of the crescent. He was as dark as the Gray Watcher had described him to me and looked only a bit older than the very young man who had engineered Vortigen’s death. One cheek was deeply scarred. You see, Dugald, after the manner of druids, had told the Gray Watcher the truth as far as it went when he told him magic was stronger in the young—but what he didn’t tell him was that a powerful practitioner can use his power to prolong his youth. And Merlin looked as though he were only perhaps thirty, and I knew Vortigen died nearly seventy years ago.

  Our glances—Merlin’s and mine—crossed like drawn swords. Almost, you could hear the clash of naked steel. I was surprised at my own boldness, but then I remembered Lais’s words. I had mulled them over on the rest of the journey. I was in a fight, and from this battle there would be no backing away.

  In fact, for a moment he seemed intimidated. Then he spoke. His acid words were not intended for my ears alone.

  “Look at that, a peasant—not much, is she? Well.” He turned to a young man at his side. “This is what they want to marry you to, a woman of the lowest sort. Christ, I wouldn’t hire her to sweep out your chamber. Not,” he said, and grinned, “that she might not be useful for entertaining my men.”

  He turned to them, and I saw he was surrounded by men-at-arms. They began laughing. The laughter sounded as if it might be a bit forced, but I was too insulted to take much notice. I knew my cheeks burned, not with embarrassment but with fury. I wanted to hurt that man, but then I came to the belated realization that he was not important—nor was even Igrane. The only important one was the stripling at his side, and I knew it must be Arthur. Arthur, who would inherit the seat of a high king. Arthur, the descendant of a man who wore the purple and commanded the greatest empire ever known.

  Our eyes met, and in the silence I heard th
e slap of waves against the stone quay, the hiss of torches, and above them the sound of the wind, that eternal and unending sea wind that purifies the shore. It flattened the admittedly ragged clothing I wore against my body.

  “Don’t speak so,” he said quietly to Merlin, “to a child and a virgin. Don’t make her hate you on your first encounter.”

  Then he stepped away from both Merlin and his mother, and I saw he was now and always would be his own man. No puppet this, dancing to the tune others played.

  “I came here,” he said, “expecting to be disappointed, but I find I am not. You are as beautiful as the morning star, and your eyes hold the fierce pride and beauty of a sea eagle. I cannot know what marriage I may be called upon to make, but to the extent I am free to follow my own inclinations, I will certainly make you an offer. We might not ever know full marriage, but it would be an honorable arrangement.”

  He was referring to the fact that most chieftains of his rank take—sometimes must take—more than one woman, and also that men in some professions find it both inconvenient and sometimes impossible to marry in the conventional sense. So, rather than let the woman fall into poverty and disgrace and her children with her, they make other, quite legal and acceptable, arrangements, my seafaring friend being a case in point.

  I could not but admire him, for both his diplomacy and his tact. In one smooth stroke he had offered me the respect and recognition due my rank, disarmed the malice of his most important and dangerous adviser, shown courtesy toward his mother, and smoothed over what might have been a dangerous quarrel. But then, I had also been put in my place, as one who might not aspire to the highest prize—a crown.