Meghan's Dragon

by E. M. Foner

  “I can’t die. I can only go home,” Bryan’s faint reply reached the ground.

  “What did he say?” Miri asked Meghan, tugging at the older girl’s sleeve. “Why isn’t he changing direction?”

  “He doesn’t understand,” Meghan cried, half to herself. She cupped her hands around her mouth and muttered, “Voice tunnel,” before shouting, “Your body will go back but you’re already dead there.”

  The climber stopped as if he had been frozen in amber, and Meghan glanced around to see if anybody else had overheard. She hadn’t used the voice tunnel trick for years, but nobody was staring at her, so it must have worked.

  “Dude! You have to get to the right of the arrow slits,” Peter yelled again. “You need magic to get past the gryphon.”

  “What?” Bryan called weakly. To the observers on the ground, he wasn’t much larger than a squirrel sitting on a low limb, but they saw his head tilt back as he scanned the wall above for threats. He hadn’t planned on falling to his death, but in the back of his mind he believed that it would mean waking up from this dream. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Dude! It’s going to get you,” Peter yelled unnecessarily.

  Bryan tried to move horizontally, but an old arrowhead he hadn’t seen lodged in a crack cut open his big toe. He’d thought that tackling the tower without his rock-climbing shoes would be a piece of cake since there weren’t any overhangs, but the other young men of the castle spent most of their lives barefoot, and the skin on the bottoms of their feet was like leather. The pain was barely noticeable, but the cut began bleeding freely, creating a deadly slipping hazard.

  “Come down!”

  For the second time he heard Meghan’s voice as if she was standing right behind him. He was momentarily furious with her for letting him think that dying here would get him home again, but that quickly gave way to the desire to get out of his current predicament. His fingers had already begun to cramp from holding the same position too long, and the clickety-click of the stone gryphon’s claws reminded him that he had to get moving. Three points of contact, he reminded himself.

  “He’s coming down,” Peter said, pointing out the obvious. “The gryphon won’t go below the lower arrow slit, right?”

  “It’s moving faster than he is, though,” a man commented, as if he was discussing the comparative merits of knights at a joust. “I make it fifty-fifty.”

  “Even money?” another man asked. “Are you taking bets?”

  Before the would-be bookmaker could answer, Bryan’s bloody toe cost him another foothold, but this time the slip came while he was moving his left hand. The center of his body arced outwards with the sudden shift in weight, suspended only by the fingers of his right hand and a tenuous toehold of his left foot. Then the magical gryphon extended its long, stone tongue, and flicked away his fingers.

  Miri screamed as the climber’s body separated from the wall and began to drop. Bryan made a futile grab at the passing courses with both hands, but he was already falling too fast to have regained his grip even if his fingers had found the edge of an undressed stone. The crowd let out a collective gasp.

  “Slow,” Meghan muttered under her breath, gripping the dragon pendant around her neck. “Slow. Slow. SLOW!”

  Bryan’s acceleration towards the ground seemed to go into reverse, and he twisted in the air like an acrobat to get his feet pointed down. He landed with his knees slightly bent and then went into a roll, but nobody was even watching him by that point. They were all staring at Meghan.

  “It was the scullery maid,” somebody said.

  “It couldn’t be her,” one of the cooks objected. “She doesn’t have any magic at all.”

  “I once saw a war mage catch a soldier who fell off a battlement, but that was Bronzehead, and everybody knows how strong he is,” a guardsman contributed.

  Meghan looked around at the surrounding faces and saw a mixture of greed and calculation. In an instant, she had gone from being an insignificant scullery maid to an unprotected prize. She turned and fled for her room.

  “Are you alright, dude?” Peter asked Bryan. He helped the dishwasher to his feet and brushed the dirt off his back.

  “I’m fine,” Bryan replied, though his toe was burning where the cut had filled with dust and grit. He limped over to one of the water troughs by the stables to wash it out, the baker’s assistant staying by his side. “What happened?”

  “Your cousin yelled, ‘Slow!’ and just like that, you stopped falling so fast,” Peter explained. “The weird thing is that everybody knows she doesn’t have any magic, or at least, we thought she didn’t. Dude. Do you know if she’s seeing anybody? I always thought she was kind of cute.”

  “I am so dead,” Bryan said out loud.

  Chapter 10

  “You should have told me,” Phinneas grumbled. “My grandson Harold is only seven years older than you, and if I had known, I would have made him wait to get married until you were ready.”

  “I’m sorry,” Meghan said, looking genuinely contrite as she refilled the soldier’s silver wine cup.

  As soon as she heard the news, Hadrixia had insisted on hosting a farewell dinner in the small chamber where she usually saw patients. Since the guest list was limited to Phinneas, Bryan, and Meghan, it hadn’t required any special preparations, other than throwing a cloth over the examination table and rounding up some chairs. Phinneas brought a jug of Castle Edgestorm red, and Hadrixia contributed some fresh fruit to the standard evening ration from the castle’s kitchen. Nobody bothered sending a messenger to find out why the dishwashers hadn’t showed up for work.

  “Where are you going to go?” the old war master continued gruffly.

  “I don’t understand why we have to leave,” Bryan said, feeling terrible that he had precipitated the very crisis he knew the girl had wanted to avoid.

  “Don’t feel badly, Bryan,” Hadrixia told him. “We know you were climbing the tower to be accepted into the guards for military training, and I’m sure you would have made it if your friend had done a better job explaining the route to you. It’s quite an accomplishment to climb as high as you did without your own magic.”

  “Everybody thinks she helped him,” Phinneas said. “I mean, everybody else thinks that. In answer to your question, boy, she can’t stay in the castle because the baron will be back within a few days and he’ll want her for one of his sons. If I were in his shoes, I’d probably send out the guard to bring you back.”

  “But not you,” Hadrixia said sternly.

  “Not me,” Phinneas agreed. “But there will be many willing to earn a bounty. If the word gets out, and it probably will, every nobleman in the country will be after her, including the king.”

  “I won’t give up half of my magic to a stranger, or all of anything else for that matter,” Meghan declared. “We’ll head east and I’ll be able to practice in the open until my block clears.”

  “What block?” Bryan asked.

  “You didn’t tell him?” Hadrixia gave Meghan a piercing look.

  The girl shook her head. “I couldn’t for some reason. You explain it to him, Hadrixia.”

  “Meghan doesn’t remember her parents or anything that happened before the age of ten because of a magical block. I can’t remove it, but I’ve seen similar blocks, and I believe it will dissolve itself when she reaches her full potential or accomplishes some special task,” the healer said.

  “If she lives that long without a real dragon to protect her,” Bryan said glumly.

  “You’ll do, boy,” Phinneas reassured him. “You have fast hands and a brave heart. To climb the tower without knowing any magic, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “That’s because almost everybody living here knows at least some magic,” Meghan reminded the old soldier.

  “It was just an accident that you were forced to reveal your abilities,” Hadrixia said to the girl. “I suggest that after you leave, you go back to concealing your true potential until you a
re in a better position to protect yourself.”

  “That suits me,” Bryan agreed immediately, since playing dumb about magic didn’t require any effort on his part.

  “I have a suggestion, but don’t tell me if you choose to try it, so I’ll be able to answer honestly if the baron asks if I know where you’ve gone,” Phinneas said, adding a sly wink. “We crossed paths with Rowan’s players on our way back from Castle Edgestorm and they were just starting their eastern harvest festival circuit. I know their stage master, an old soldier by the name of Simon who may believe he owes me a favor. If the two of you could catch up with them there should be work for you, a measure of protection, and a chance for young Bryan to get some training in the sword.”

  “It’s something to consider,” Meghan said noncommittally, reaching out at the same time to cover Bryan’s mouth with her hand.

  “And I have another suggestion,” Hadrixia said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  The healer rose and went into her bedroom, where she approached one of the larger stones in the wall. She made a motion like untying a knot with her fingers, and a hollow space suddenly appeared in the previously solid-looking rock. The space contained a few bits of jewelry that were largely of sentimental value, a number of scrolls, and her earnings from healings. Hadrixia removed all of the copper coins plus half of the silver, and placed them in a small leather change purse. Then she carefully chose two different-sized gold rings from the string of three dozen or so that represented her savings since coming to the castle. Performing the untying motions in reverse restored the stone to its previous state, and she returned to her guests.

  “Here you go,” Hadrixia said, handing the change purse to Meghan. “It’s just a bunch of coppers and a few silvers. And try these on,” she added, casually handing each of the young people a gold ring.

  “We can’t take gold!” Meghan exclaimed. “Besides, I have a little money saved.”

  “Nonsense,” the healer replied. “It’s fair payment for all of the years you’ve helped me, and you shouldn’t think of these rings as money in any case. You don’t have any experience traveling and Bryan has barely been on our world for a week. The best chance the two of you have of keeping safe out there is pretending to be married.”

  Meghan opened her mouth to protest and then snapped it shut again. She had already acknowledged how unprepared she was when she pulled Bryan through from Dark Earth, and now it struck her how little she really knew about life outside of the castle and its immediate neighborhood. She’d never slept outside of the castle’s walls, and everything she knew about the world was from the stories of travelers and the scrolls she was able to scan while dusting the baron’s library each morning.

  “I’ll keep mine,” Bryan declared, slipping it onto his ring finger. For some reason his voice deepened, and there was an edge of a threat in his words. He gazed greedily at the ring he now wore, and his green eyes seemed to sparkle with the candlelight reflected off of the narrow band of gold. Then the moment passed, and he shook his head as if he needed to clear his thoughts.

  “Maybe our young friend knew what she was doing after all,” Phinneas commented, helping himself to a refill. “If you should become her dragon, boy, remember that too much love of gold can get you killed. Don’t forget the story of how Gwyneth met her end because she refused to leave her hoard when an earthquake shook her mountain lair to pieces. And she was the most powerful dragon in New Land.”

  “I’m not going to become a dragon,” Bryan said angrily, pushing his chair back from the small table and rising. “I’m sorry I fell off the tower and forced Meghan to save me, but I didn’t ask for any of this. Why did you wait until I was two-thirds of the way up to tell me that I’m dead back on Dark Earth? Did you have to kill me to bring me here?”

  He towered over the seated girl, who was frozen in shock by his sudden change of attitude. Phinneas rose from his own chair and moved to put himself between the young people, but Hadrixia grabbed his arm.

  “Wait!” the healer ordered the old soldier. “Meghan didn’t kill you to bring you here, Bryan. She saved your life. I told her to give you a chance to settle in before explaining that part to you, but I see now that was a mistake.”

  Bryan shifted his intense stare from the old soldier, to the healer, to the young mage who looked like she had been slapped in the face. Part of him wanted to apologize, but an unfamiliar feeling of distrust welled up from somewhere, and he couldn’t decide on what to say or do.

  “I hoped to make this offer later, but since you’re leaving tonight and we don’t know when you’ll be back, I can try to help you recover your memory of your final moments on Dark Earth,” Hadrixia continued rapidly. “There’s no guarantee it will work, but I can’t send you off together if you don’t trust each other with your lives.”

  “I trust…” Bryan began, but then he cut himself off. He wanted to know more, and despite having finished eating just minutes before, there was a strange emptiness in him. He felt starved for knowledge, for power, and he didn’t know why he suddenly felt so suspicious of everyone. “If you can help me remember my death, let’s do it.”

  “Please sit down again,” Hadrixia said. “I have to put my hands on your head, and your height makes it awkward for me.”

  Bryan settled slowly back into his chair, keeping an eye on the old soldier the whole time as if he expected a trick. His vision seemed to be changing, and he noticed that the slightest movements of his companions immediately drew his attention, just like when he got into the zone playing first-person shooter games. The healer came and stood in front of him.

  “Don’t be afraid now,” she said. “With your permission, I’m going to join you in remembering so I can guide you past whatever it is that’s keeping you from seeing what really happened. Are you ready?”

  Bryan nodded, and taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He didn’t know where the feeling of paranoia was coming from, but if Meghan had wanted to kill him, she could have simply let him fall to his death a few hours earlier and skipped the elaborate charade. Even the gold ring he felt ready to defend with his life was a gift from the healer which he’d received only minutes before. He wondered if he was going crazy.

  “Remember,” Hadrixia intoned in a low voice that seemed to penetrate to the depths of his being. “Remember with me.”

  ……..

  Bryan struggled to load a fresh crystal into the breach of the laser cannon. The disguised princess, whose features bore a suspicious resemblance to Meghan’s, occupied the gunner’s chair and swept the sights across the tree line, scanning for targets. Monstrous attackers came at them out of the woods, and the air stank of sulfur.

  “See with your eyes, hear with your ears,” a woman’s voice said inside his head.

  Bryan’s eyes snapped open, and suddenly he was standing in front of the dishwashing machine, loading the final bus pan of dishes into an empty rack. The radio was playing, which meant it was long past closing time, and the waitstaff and cooks were all gone. The only people left in the place at this hour were Bryan and the night manager, and the air really did stink like rotten eggs. There was a weird flickering at the edges of the dishwasher’s vision, and his eyes felt oddly numb, like somebody had put in anesthetic drops.

  “Not done yet?” the manager slurred as he entered through the swinging door from the dining room. He was drunk, as he always was by one in the morning, and he squinted tightly against the smoke from his own cigarette. Bryan didn’t even acknowledge the question as he worked scraping and loading the dishes. He still needed to take out the garbage, break down the machine, and wash the floor with the hot water sprayer. The manager hadn’t expected an answer, and he continued through to the kitchen on his final inspection.

  “Do you smell gas?” the manager called back through the doorway.

  A white hand reached out of nowhere above Bryan’s head. He heard Meghan’s voice shout, “You must come with me. NOW!”

  Bryan reache
d for the hand as a fireball billowed through the kitchen door. He saw a copy of his body peel away from him and fly over the oval track to impact the stainless steel dishwashing machine, his head making a respectable dent in the access panel. The white hand drew him impossibly through the roof, and he looked down at the rapidly shrinking banquet facility to see flames vomiting from the windows. Then everything went dark.

  “It blew up,” he mumbled, looking at his companions. “They were having problems with a leaky gas fitting on the new stove, but the prep cook wrapped it in tape so they could use it until the installer came back. I guess the tape didn’t hold.”

  Chapter 11

  “You have to untie the pack,” Meghan whispered. “I can’t reach that high.”

  “I still don’t see why we couldn’t leave through the main gate,” Bryan grumbled in reply. He reached up and untied the travel pack from the slender rope. “It’s humiliating to be lowered from the wall by a rope in the dark like we’re running away or something.”

  “We ARE running away,” Meghan whispered back in exasperation. “What’s come over you lately?”

  “Here,” Bryan said, thrusting the pack into her hands. “If we’re going to leave then we should go already.”

  Meghan shook her head in disbelief and shrugged her way into the pack. Then she waved a final goodbye at the flicker of light high above, not that Hadrixia or Phinneas would be able to see her. She was using magic to enhance her own vision in the moonless and cloudy night, and even so, she could barely make out Bryan’s tall form as he strode off in the direction of the road.

  “Wait,” she hissed at him. “You’re going to fall in a ditch and break your neck. I’ll go first.”

  He halted long enough for her to catch up, and then to her surprise, he grabbed her hand and started off again.

  “I can see fine,” Bryan told her, keeping his voice low. “I used to run at night after work. As long as the moon and the stars are out, I can manage.”