The Birthday Dragon

by Lee Abrey

  “You are alive!”

  “Only barely!” I bellowed back at her. “I’m bloody dying. Again!” She stopped and looked at me, her green eye as big as a football, right in front of me. She had an iris ring of blue opalescence, making the green even more vivid.

  “Polo Shawcross, you have cost me a dear friend!” I burst into tears that burned my eyes.

  “She was my friend too,” I said, hugging my knees, blinking through the pain. “She was wonderful.”

  “They meant to kill you, laddie,” she said, her voice suddenly soft, “remember that.” I stared.

  “Me?” I said. “Why would anyone want to kill me?” I hadn’t even thought about that aspect. Why had someone shot a crossbow bolt at Virginia? Answer? They hadn’t. She was collateral damage. I hiccupped. The Dragon queen’s voice was a hiss in my ear.

  “You find who it was, Polo,” she said, “then you tear their freaking throat out. Or call one of us, we’ll do it for you.”

  “She was about to teach me how to change shape,” I said, “if I learn, I’ll do it. Rip their throat out.”

  “Do it slowly,” she said, voice hissing on the ‘s’ sound.

  ****

  Chapter 35 – Meet the Queen

  Looking for myself, I floated through the infirmary. Many strange things were on top of the cupboards, including a selection of stuffed toy animals and cooking utensils. There was another note, saying Dr Henry Keller wanted to talk to anyone who read it. He was the doctor I’d tried to tell about my out-of-body experience when I was attacked by the Queen of Joban as a dragon.

  As I fell back into my body I nearly laughed aloud. The room was in semi-darkness. A woman was standing over me. Tall with copper hair, and for a moment I thought it was the nurse, Anna, or maybe Saraia. She was wearing dark trousers and a dark shirt.

  “You are hard to wake,” she said, her voice husky. I blinked, sure I didn’t know her. Did I need to be afraid? “You do know me, laddie. Nothing to fear.” She leaned over the bed, and I looked into her big green eyes, dusted with a ring of opalescent blue. The pupils also gave her away, vertical like a cat’s. Or a dragon’s. Even in my weak state, I opened my eyes wide.

  “Your Majesty?” I said.

  “Hush,” she said, “it’s Lilith,” and took a knife from her belt. I wasn’t afraid, I knew why she’d come, but I asked her anyway.

  “What are you doing here?” She rolled up her sleeve.

  “I didn’t trust anyone else,” she said. With a swift movement she cut herself on the forearm then fed me the blood. “Drink, you young idiot. I can’t let you die.” She stepped me through some healing exercises I’d done with Virginia. Despite me being semi-delirious, she was endlessly patient, though she did call me names a lot.

  Anna the nurse came in and the Dragon queen paused.

  “I’m his physical therapist,” said Lilith. Anna looked her up and down. “The replacement.”

  “You always get the strange women, Polo,” said Anna, “you alright?”

  “Aye,” I said, my voice a croak, “I’m going to live.”

  “I never doubted you,” she said. She looked back at Lilith. “You’re the one I saw landing out on the Green.” That was the lawn where Virginia was killed and I was shot.

  “Aye,” said the Dragon queen. “You do know, you tell anyone I’m here, I’ll hunt you down and tear your throat out?” Anna wasn’t easily cowed. She laughed.

  “No need to threaten me,” she said, hands on her hips, “I’m not likely to say I saw a bloody great dragon land behind the citadel. Then change into a naked woman.” She looked the queen up and down. “You look pretty good for someone as old as you’re supposed to be. Where did you steal the outfit?”

  “My age is exaggerated and I don’t need to steal,” said Lilith, sounding haughty, “I have friends here.”

  “I bet you do,” said Anna. “Well, he’s on the mend again, looks like. I’ll be back in an hour.” She walked out.

  “You were naked?” I said. Lilith turned to me. She was very old. She didn’t look it. She looked maybe forty and that was only because of the eyes. Too old for the fabulous outer shell.

  “Of course,” she said, “one can’t change shape and hold onto clothes.” That hadn’t occurred to me. “Sometimes I carry a pack if I know I’m going to change. This time, well, I was in a hurry and forgot.”

  I found it surprising, such a sign of humanity in someone with eyes that alien.

  “Oh,” she said, and blinked, “there, is that better?” Her eyes were big and green, but the pupil was suddenly round. I gasped. “Of course I can read minds,” she said, “it’s not that hard. You broadcast what you’re thinking, Polo, I wouldn’t need much in the way of skills.” She tilted her head. “I learned it for something to do,” she said. Another pause. “It passes the centuries.”

  Desperately I tried not to think. It didn’t work.

  “Gods no,” she said, and laughed, “I don’t tune in on everyone, most people’s minds are scary places. Or sad ones.” She sighed. “So many people are so unhappy, or horribly busy pretending they’re not. It’s a reason to stay in Redoubt, because people screen their thoughts there.” Pause. “You can learn to screen,” she said, “as you can learn to read.” A giggle.

  “You’re not that sick, Polo Shawcross, if you can think of doing that to me.” I tried again to muffle my thoughts. “That’s good,” she said, “I can hear you trying not to think but aside from that you’re blocking me.” She laughed. “You were,” she said, and helped me sit up, gave me water. “Blood is a funny aftertaste, I agree.”

  ****

  I woke up and Fenric was there. He helped me sit up and gave me water. I felt dizzy, with deja vu and hunger. Seemed I kept waking to thirst and someone helping me up. I also felt hungry.

  “Can I have something to eat?” I said. “Can you ask Anna? Or whoever’s on?”

  “Sure, lad,” he said, “be right back.” He went off then returned. “Someone’s fetching something. So if you can eat, you’re feeling better.”

  “Aye,” I said, “I’m starving.”

  “What do you remember?” he said, pulling out a notebook.

  “About being shot?” I said. He nodded.

  “I need the whole story.” I described Virginia dying, how I ran then was shot. He wrote it all down, checked angles, drew a map and made sure he understood exactly where Virginia and I were, how we were hit and where I thought the shooter was. My left arm was in a cast and I was occupied poking a pencil down inside it to scratch myself.

  “Have I missed her funeral?” I said. He nodded. “By a lot?” He gave me a sympathetic look.

  “You were very sick again, lad,” he said, “it’s been three weeks.”

  “Three?” I was aghast. I rubbed my chin, only a week’s worth of stubble, someone had shaved me while I was out. “But, but what about school?” He laughed. I could imagine my parents laughing too. I’d never minded being out of school before. “I can’t miss school,” I said, “it’s my final year. I was doing so well.” He patted my leg.

  “They’ll give you tutoring,” he said, “don’t panic. The king blames himself, thinks you were targeted because you’re a friend of the family. Moreover you were shot inside his citadel, which means Crown security failed, badly. No crossbows or other weapons allowed inside the grounds, no exceptions. Except guards, and you.” I was allowed a knife, something the king decreed after Kristen’s attack. I sat up in bed properly, wincing as I jarred my arm.

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Wrong?” said Fenric. “What do you mean?”

  “They didn’t catch whoever it was,” I said, “something’s wrong. There were maybe ten people around and more came running at the noise. I saw soldiers coming up. How come the shooter got away?” He breathed out.

  “Someone,” he said, “sent the soldiers in the wrong direction.” I blinked.

  “The wrong direction?” I said.

/>   “Aye,” he said, “someone insisted they saw the shooter back in the trees towards the House Lake.” I gasped.

  “But,” I said, “why would they do that?”

  “This is only a guess, mate,” said Fenric, “but I’d say it’s because you thrashed his arse in front of most of the citadel residents.” I groaned.

  “Young Perry?” I said. Fenric nodded.

  “Aye,” he said, “which begs the question, seeing Prince Porky isn’t known as an early riser, what was he doing next to the Green close to dawn, right as you were shot?” I shuddered.

  “Gods,” I said, “he wanted to see me die.”

  “Seems so,” said Fenric. “I suspected something like this. I’ll go see the king’s people.” I laughed suddenly.

  “Prince Porky?” I said. Fenric grinned and ran a hand through his cropped black hair.

  “Oh, you’ve been out of things,” he said, “he’s a prince now.”

  “A prince? Gods.” I grimaced. Things just got worse.

  “Aye,” said Fenric, “he has to, to be officially part of the succession. They’ve even made the Half Aunt a Lady of Peterhaven.” He made a snorting noise. “Honorary title, can’t be inherited or passed on, but she gets an allowance. Theo’s busy assuring people it’s for show so Kristen backs off, seeing she’d have to kill Theo, Azrael, and Young Perry to be queen.” I snarled.

  “If Perry makes it to king-” I began to say, and Fenric held his hands up.

  “Aye,” he said, “don’t say it, we all feel the same. You’ll have to get in line. And the current king would be first in the queue.” He paused. “Where’s your ghost?” I wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since-” I paused, not sure when Cree had last been around. “Before the dragon attack, and during, Cree warned me, in his own way, about what was about to happen with Aunt Kristen. Why didn’t he warned me about what happened on the Green?”

  “It’s an Unfortunate Accident,” said Fenric, “because it wasn’t an accident and you dying would be fortunate for someone.” He smiled. “Southern humour.” I laughed.

  “I’d like to see the south. And Redoubt. Can you change, Fenric? Your body, I mean.” He nodded.

  “I did,” he said, “twice. Under stress of an extreme kind each time. I’ve never managed it otherwise. I was very glad to get back into human shape. Haven’t tried for a while come to think of it.”

  “What did you turn into?” He paused a moment before answering.

  “Me,” he said, and smiled. “I don’t know, I had no mirror. And there were no survivors who stayed around long enough to tell me what they saw.” He tapped the notebook on his knee and I thought he wasn’t going to say any more then suddenly he went on, “I was a scout, ended up alone on the wrong side of the border a few times. Captured by Sriamans, or about to be. When I changed I did feel big. I tore some apart, the rest ran like dogs.” His grey eyes lost their usual amiable light and suddenly seemed to look right through me.

  “Did you feel human?” I said softly, expecting him to say I was prying too much. Instead he said,

  “When I say big, I mean maybe thirty feet high on my hinds.” I whistled. “My head was in the treetops,” he said. “I felt more than human. It was good. One is the sum of all one’s parts, not only those considered higher faculties.” He grinned, showing his canines. “I could see their blood beating, life inside them, and I could have chased every one down and killed them. Done it all without feeling a damn about them, whether they were men with lives and loves, like me.”

  “Isn’t that a bit dangerous?” I said, “Letting the animal out?” He nodded.

  “Handy for a soldier,” he said, “especially when he’s about to die, but you’ve the scars to prove the danger, lad. You were damn lucky the Queen of Joban didn’t kill you.” There was no arguing with that. I remembered he had been to Redoubt, so we probably had an acquaintance in common.

  “I saw the Dragon queen,” I said, “Lilith. Though it may have been a dream. If it was her, in human form she’s a redhead. She’s hot.”

  “Smoking,” said Fenric. He grinned and I did too. “Chew you up and spit you out.”

  “A bit like Saraia, mate,” I said. He chuckled.

  “Aye, pretty much,” he said, and I laughed. It hurt my arm. I whimpered and tried not to move. I didn’t mind the pain, it meant I was alive. Pain was something I knew how to bear, that I could ease with the right doses of drugs, exercise, and meditation.

  I remembered sitting on the grass with Virginia while the fat bumblebee rummaged in the flowers in the grass and feeling glad to be alive, to see a bumblebee, to feel the grass underfoot. A wave of guilt rolled over me. I was alive, Virginia was dead and it was my fault. The shooter was aiming for me.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said Fenric. I looked up at him, feeling stricken. “I can see it in your face,” he went on, “you’re blaming yourself. You’re not the one who hired someone to kill someone else. That’s on Young Perry’s head, not yours.”

  ****

  Chapter 36 – A Responsible Lad

  A little while later, Fenric had gone, Nurse Anna came in with a tray of food and I asked her if Dr Keller was around. He came in, a tall man with silver hair. I recognised him from my previous stay, though I hadn’t known his name then.

  “I saw the note,” I said.

  “The note?” he said.

  “The one on top of the cupboard,” I said, “are the animals and the fry-pans up there for a reason?”

  “Gods,” he said, “you again, Shawcross.”

  “Me?” I said, then remembered his voice. Dr Keller was the one who’d argued about me seeing the note before because it would cost him a gold crown. The other doctor had called Dr Keller a weasel. Keller claimed I must have seen the note before I was injured.

  “Dr bloody Olsen put you up to this,” said Dr Keller, “didn’t he?” I presumed that was the one who’d made the gold crown bet.

  “No, but never mind,” I said.

  “I don’t appreciate being toyed with!” he shouted. I rolled my eyes and let him storm out.

  ****

  School had started. Though I was soon out of hospital, I still wasn’t fit to attend, so they gave me a tutor to keep me up with the others. I’d lost weight again and was so bloody weak.

  Simon, Azrael’s physiotherapist, was working with me instead of on my unconscious body. I vaguely remembered being pummelled but now was awake for the full glory of the pain. Simon was at least as merciless as Virginia had been but not as pretty to look at, though his eyes were at least as arresting. In his mid-forties, he was a slightly plump, greying man, with cat’s-eyes in various shades of green and gold. Scintillating, the rare marking was called, with segments of the iris alternating colours in delicate petals.

  “It’s nice to have you back with us,” Simon said. “The Crown Prince sends his best, the doctors won’t let him visit in case you’re still infectious.” I nodded, having taken that much in.

  “They said in a week or so,” I said, “when I finish the next course of antibiotics, he can come. Going to make sure the damn infection is dead this time.”

  “We’re lucky we have antibiotics,” he said, “imagine if they weren’t rediscovered?” I knew the story. By chance, a duke’s librarian found an old medical textbook. Suddenly the recipe, simple yet elusive and lost for a thousand years, was ours again.

  “Many more people would have died,” I said. Simon nodded. He was twisting my healing arm into careful but painful poses. I kept breathing, trying not to focus on sensation, to stay in my self-imposed alpha state where I could float above any pain. Breathe, I told myself. Breathe. Breath was all.

  “Cuts our battle losses down by thousands,” Simon said, “every year.” He wore a tiny silver dragon on his collar.

  “You were in the army?” I said. “Ow!”

  “Going to do that again, breathe, Polo. Aye, did ten years in the medical corps.” We talked as h
e put me through a series of exercises, all apparently designed by sadists for masochists. Between my screams, it turned out that Simon knew my father. “Excellent soldier, that man,” he said, “hard to believe someone so talented was pure peasant.”

  “He was a throwback,” I said, “to the first settlers.” The realisation fell on me, as if from a height. I had something in common with Father.

  I thought I was a throwback too. In my case, it was based on Grandmama telling me so, and seeing a painting that showed some forgotten Blood great-uncle. Not forgotten by Grandmama Daeva, who told me his name was Beau Casterton, my late Grandpa Casterton’s brother. He had the same colouring as me, the green eyes and blonde hair, the same shaped face. “Father was always sure the blood of the first Yusaf ran in his veins,” I said aloud, “that he was secretly a wild man, a pioneer.”

  “He died?” said Simon.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, suddenly aware of using the past tense, “no, I’ve lost touch with him. Not for very long, just a few months.”

  ****

  Fenric visited with depressing news.

  “Prince Porky got out of it,” he said. I couldn’t believe it.

  “What?” I said. “How?”

  “Cida Innes,” said Fenric, and curled his lip.

  “Cida?” I said. How did Azrael’s peasant friend get involved? Then I remembered Young Perry was pawing Cida when I met him.

  “Cida said it was her idea to go for a walk along the Green that morning,” said Fenric, mimicking Cida’s diction, “she wanted to introduce Perry to the delights of clean living and temple-going, including dawn walks.” I snorted with disgust.

  “What a crock.”

  “Aye,” he said, and spread his fingers, “but what can you do? It was Sunday it happened, you know?” I hadn’t remembered what day it was. “Cida and Prince Porky went to dawn temple, the priests and congregation confirmed it. People remembered them because they were necking and several people told them to show some respect.”