A Dragon In the Palace

by William King

  Mistress Iliana brought Ghoran and Jay to talk to me. They told me stories of life in the barracks and what the various people we knew were up to. They too seemed very quiet though, as if they knew something that I did not. Ghoran made his usual jokes and Jay responded sarcastically to them. I was glad to hear their voices. Red was even more pleased to see them, of course because they always brought him food.

  One day, it got really bad. I could barely speak or move and all the people who knew me in the past gathered around and looked down at me. Mistress Iliana and Master Lucas exchanged dark looks. The old man shook his head rather sadly. I wondered what was going on. We did they know that I did not?

  My fever grew worse. My dreams were terrible. Sometimes I saw the monster in them. It had my face and then it had Master Lucas’s then Mistress Iliana’s. Sometimes it had wings. Sometimes it breathed smoke and belched fire as if it was part dragon. Those were nights when I woke shaking to find Red squatting on my chest huddled over me, licking me as if he was trying to wake me from a terrible nightmare.

  It came to me then why everyone visited me. I did not have much longer here. I was going to die. At least it would put an end to my dreams of the cursed monster. That thought passed through my mind and then I slid back into unconsciousness like a drowning man going down beneath the waves the last time.

  I was back in the destroyed village of Ghazan and it was there. It walked around me, inspecting me and shaking its head as if it did not like what it saw. It definitely had wings now and small horns emerging from its forehead. I wondered if it was what was causing me harm. I wondered if I’d carried it with me this whole time. I felt surprisingly lucid.

  The thing opened its mouth as if it wanted to speak but when it did so only gibberish came out. It raised a hand and pointed a finger at me and I saw that it had a claw at the end of it, a talon like that of a predatory bird. A look of confusion came into its eye. Its right hand shuddered and began to move as if it had a life of its own. The monster grabbed hold of its right wrist with its left hand, as if trying to restrain its own limb but still the right hand moved.

  It made a symbol in the air and then another then a third. All of them rotated and I saw what it was.

  It had recreated the spell that Mistress Iliana and Master Lucas had cast together. It was made up of three glyphs. I understood only one of them, the one that brought light. I wondered how it was possible that such a thing as this could work such magic. That did not really matter. Quite obviously it could.

  As I watched the symbols spun and power flowed. I felt life draining out of me. Shadows gathered beyond the circle of light created by the symbol. They whispered and moved like boiling mist. The demonic thing capered frantically. Bulges in its skin moved as if small animals were burrowing through its flesh. What new horror was about to erupt now?

  It flexed its wings and leapt upwards, soaring towards the dark sky. The full moon above us was the colour of blood. The monster arched backwards, spread its wings to the furthest extent and then pulled them in.

  It closed its wings and plummeted like a hawk stooping upon its prey, screaming as it came. I flinched because I knew it was dropping straight towards me. Its feet had hooked claws like a bird’s. Three toes pointing forward with talons on them and one pointing backwards so that it can grasp a perch. Those things could rend my flesh like daggers.

  I wanted to run but I was frozen on the spot like a rabbit, too weak to do anything. As it dropped, its entire form writhed. It smashed into the ground missing me by inches. Its limbs thrashing and its wings beating frantically.

  What was happening? Even as that thought occurred to me, something erupted from the thing’s chest. Bones parted, ribs opened, flesh burst and a scaled, winged form erupted from within the demon.

  It gave a small defiant shriek and then red flames lit the night, the same colour as the bloody moon. The corpse of the demon flopped to the ground near me. It was as if it had been hollowed out from within. A small dragon circled above it now, wings spread as if catching invisible air currents.

  Slowly, it dropped to the ground and settled in front of the corpse. It began to clean itself, licking away the blood and gore. I could see that it was Red. He looked pleased with himself and I wondered if perhaps he was smarter than he looked.

  My eyes opened. Master Lucas and Mistress Iliana looked down on me. There was a strange expression both their faces. I sensed power had been at work in the room. I suspected that they had been working the spell again. “I feel all right,” I said. “You saved me.”

  Mistress Iliana shook her head. “We did nothing.”

  They both stared at me hard. I shook my head and the room spun a little. It did not matter. I knew the worst was behind me. I was going to get better. I looked up at them and said, “What is it?”

  “Something worked magic,” Mistress Iliana said.

  “Was it you?” Master Lucas asked.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I did nothing.”

  The old wizard looked at my mistress and said, “he is telling the truth. Or he believes so.”

  “We have a mystery then,” Mistress Iliana said. “Who did work magic?”

  She turned and looked at Red. The dragon hiccupped, belched and emitted a small farting sound before he waddled away and lay down and put his paws across his eyes fell asleep. He looked very innocent.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After that night I got better rapidly. Master Lucas pronounced my fever broken. Mistress Iliana continued to regard the dragonling with suspicion but nothing untoward happened after that. Red was noticeably heavier when he lay across my chest now. He seemed to have put on several pounds. And he was longer, by at least the length of my hand. His scales were becoming deeper and glossier red.

  “I think we are going to be all right, boy,” I said to him. He nodded his head as if he agreed.

  My appetite returned and I could eat. At first it was a struggle to do so without throwing it up into the bowl the servant boy held for me. But I managed to get some nourishment.

  Slowly the elixir was tapered off. I got headaches. I felt shaky as if the absence of the drug was doing something to my body. I felt a craving for it in a way that I never had before. I wanted just to feel the taste of it on my tongue. Master Lucas never offered me any more and when I asked about the elixir, he looked at me with narrowed eyes and spoke with his suspicion in his voice.

  “You have already had more of that potion than is good for you,” he said. “Your body has developed a dependency on it and you’re going to feel bad for a few days after it is withdrawn.”

  “I have already felt bad for a few weeks,” I said. “It hardly seems fair.”

  “That’s life for you,” Master Lucas said jovially. It was easy for him to say. He was not the one who was sick.

  For distraction, I had many visitors among them Ghoran and Jay. Lady Alysia continued to visit me every day and I was delighted to see her although there were always other people present so we could not talk without restraint.

  Frater Jonas showed up bearing books and a wax tablet. He and the servant helped prop me up in bed and the tablet was set in front of me. Jonas said, “I’m glad to see that you have recovered. Some people did not expect you to pull through.”

  I said, “I’m sorry to disappoint them.”

  “They are all happy that you are well,” he said. “As am I. I invested a lot of time in teaching you and I would hate to think it had gone to waste.”

  He smiled to let me know he was joking but I sensed there was some truth behind his words.

  We began to talk. It seemed that he had been familiarising himself with more of the Palace and he talked with great animation about the Duke’s collection and things he had seen there. He seemed particularly enthusiastic about the armour of the angels preserved in the Glass Wing. He was hardly less enthusiastic about some of the paintings. The library also gave him joy. He enumerated the virtues of many of the volumes. And then he said, “and soon, h
opefully, you will be able to read them.”

  “That depends on how good my teacher is,” I said.

  “Oh no,” he said. “It depends on how clever my pupil is. I fear that it may take longer than I initially wanted.”

  After half an hour of general conversation we began to talk about the words he had taught me in old Solari.

  He spelled out in solar runes so that I could understand them. He began to talk about the simplest of things after that. He wrote the word for dog and cat and dragon. He was endlessly patient and something about his confidence that I could learn transmitted itself to me.

  I gave all my attention to learning to cipher the alphabet the ancient Solari used. It was not much different from the one that Alysia had taught me. It had a few more symbols used in certain ancient words. Some of these had mystical significance. Jonas seemed surprised by how quickly I was learning, but I had nothing to compare the experience to. I soaked up the words like a sponge.

  Mistress Iliana visited me as well. She talked about sorcery and what Master Lucas was up to. It seemed that he was spending a lot of time in the library researching dragons. There were a number of volumes there, some written in cryptic tongues. He was deciphering them and hoping he would find out something more about what had happened to me. The way she talked, she seemed quite suspicious. I could not blame her for that. I was curious myself. “What really happened, mistress?”

  “You tell me, boy,” she said. “Master Lucas and I were holding a vigil beside your bed and suddenly we felt power flowing through the room. We recognised the spell. It was the one that we had been working ourselves to try and restore your health. We were not casting it. Whatever was, it worked.”

  I suspected that there was much she was not telling me. I waited quietly to see if she would say anything more. Sometimes I remained so for long enough she would speak.

  “You’re looking very watchful,” she said. “What do you know that I do not?”

  “Nothing, mistress,” I said. “Honestly. I wish I could help you.”

  “Since that evening you’ve been regaining health very quickly,” Mistress Iliana said. “You look much better. You’ve been eating better, although you’re becoming quite podgy.”

  There was not much I could say about that because it was true. I was starting to get a small roll of fat around my stomach. I had lost muscle during my illness. It was almost as if my body had been consuming itself. Perhaps it had. I realised that I wanted to learn more of the healing magic that Master Lucas knew. If nothing else I might be able to use it on myself to find out what had happened. But I also want to learn what Mistress Iliana could teach me. I wanted to learn everything. And I felt as if I’d been given another chance.

  I felt surges of joy sometimes as I lay there. Food tasted better. There were times though when I felt depressed and I craved the blue elixir in a way I had never wanted anything in my life before.

  My moods swung between happiness and sadness with eerie regularity. Eventually though, the cravings subsided, although never entirely. There were times when I would catch a flash of the blue sky through the window, or the shade of blue that Alysia sometimes wore, and I would feel the desire, but always it subsided

  Days passed and I became stronger. Soon I was able to get out of bed and hobble around the room. I was still weak and sometimes dizzy but I was mobile again. Red followed me around, snapping at my heels, encouraging me with growls, and always, always looking for food.

  The visitors continued to call. I was happy to see them, particularly Lady Alysia who made a point of visiting me in the mornings when I was strongest. She brought me a book from the library, she said it was a dictionary, a collection of words. I had to explain to her that it was not of much use to me.

  “Yet,” she said. “You will need it soon if what Frater Jonas says is true.”

  “You been talking to him,” I asked.

  “Yes,” Alysia said. “He was questioning me about the trip. But since then we have become friends. He is an interesting character. In some ways he reminds me of you.”

  I did not know whether to be flattered or insulted. I felt the worm of jealousy gnawing at my heart. Jonas could talk to Alysia outside of this room. “Do you see him often?”

  She looked at me more sharply than usual. I think she heard the envy in my voice. “He and Frater Franco advise my father. Well, mostly Frater Franco. Jonas is often there and we stand to one side and chat while they ignore us. He is quite a scholar.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said.

  “Are you jealous?” She smiled as she said it.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Her face flushed a little. She looked away, glancing at her lady in waiting who giggled. I had a feeling that I had said the wrong thing. My own face flushed.

  We were silent for a while, lost in our own thoughts.

  “How long do you think would be before you begin your studies again?” Alysia asked at last. Clearly, she was not talking about my reading lessons.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was not doing very well at them anyway.”

  “That is not what your mistress told Father,” Alysia said. “She seemed very proud of you. She says she’s never seen any apprentice pick things up so quickly.”

  I found it difficult to picture Mistress Iliana singing my praises to the Duke. “She keeps her pride very secret then. She’s never let me know.”

  “I’m sure she has,” Alysia said. “You probably just have not heard it.”

  “I’m not deaf,” I said.

  “No, but you have a tendency to believe the worst of what people tell you about yourself and ignore the good things.”

  “Since you’re talking about my weaknesses, I’m going to have to believe you,” I said. She laughed.

  “I hope you will be able to come and see my father and I very soon,” she said. “I always enjoy talking to you.”

  “More than you enjoy talking to Jonas?” I tried to make it sound like a joke but I could not keep the dark emotion from my voice.

  “You are jealous,” Alysia said. “Who would have thought it?”

  “No, I’m not,” I said, too quickly. She nodded her head as if she understood exactly what was going on.

  “You’re both my friends,” she said. “And I don’t have so many that I can afford to lose either of you.”

  “How long have you known Jonas?”

  “Just since I got back to the Palace,” she said. “He was not here when I started off in my pilgrimage to Tarnheim.”

  The jealous part of my mind thought that she had become friendly with him very quickly. While I had been lying here sick all of the time she was out laughing and joking with him.

  What did it matter who this young aristocrat was friendly with? As my mistress had taken pains to point out to me, nothing could happen between me and her. That did not change the way I felt.

  I wondered if there was a spell that would let me do that. I wondered if there were spells for changing human emotions. I could see how some of those would be useful. I could also see how people would be tempted to use them.

  Later, after Alysia had left, Jay and Ghoran showed up. They looked very presentable, wearing the same tabards the guards in the Palace normally wore.

  “Where did you steal those?” I asked as they closed the door behind them.

  “We no steal,” Ghoran said. “We guards.”

  “Well, I am,” said Jay. “I’m not so sure about this one.”

  “It’s good to see both of you anyway,” I said. “It’s been awhile.”

  “We saw a lot of you but you were sleeping,” Jay said. “You looked pretty sick.”

  “You still look sick,” Ghoran said. “That why we here.”

  “What are you planning on doing?”

  “Your mistress told us to take you outside for a walk,” Jay said. “It was not in the nature of request. So here we are. Get dressed. You’re going out.”

  “Very good,” I said.
I started to understand. Mistress Iliana had sent them to make sure I was all right while I was getting exercise outside. It was thoughtful of her to choose this pair.

  I put on my robe while Ghoran and Jay petted Red and made sure that he was well fed. He still seemed to be growing. A diet of sausage and other meats agreed with him. I could still remember mouse bones crunching in my mouth. It made me hungry.

  We went up onto the battlements. That seemed to be the chosen place for people to walk. I suppose because they had a good view of the city.

  “Good job that we are not spies,” Jay said as we strolled along. He spoke very quietly making sure that none of the sentries heard him. I understood why. It was not the sort of thing that you wanted people to hear in the Palace even if you were just making a joke.

  “Who say we not?” Ghoran said. He spoke loudly as always.

  “I don’t think anybody would be foolish enough to hire the pair of you,” I said.

  “Spider did,” Ghoran said.

  “And the Duke took me into his service,” Jay said.

  I paused and leaned against the battlements. Making my way up the stairs had tired me out more than I liked. Red scampered along the battlements. He perched on the very edge and leaned forward in a way that made it look as if he was about to tumble off.

  Then he did. And with a flap of his wings he took to the air. When he did so, I felt myself looking down over a spectacular drop. Beneath me was the tiled roof of a tenement building. The angle was strange. The next thing I knew I toppled over. Jay and Ghoran stood over me, looking worried. Ghoran extended a hand to help me up.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “Yes,” Ghoran said. “Obviously.”

  “Healthy people often fall over,” Jay said. “I do it myself all the time.”