by Mary Brown
With a creak of wings we altered course, and once again I felt the cold air buffet my body and, too soon, we were again at the mouth of the cave. A sudden, jolting landing, a slurp of water from Pisky's bowl, and Conn's arms were lifting me, bowl and all, from the dragon's back.
"You all right, Thingummy?"
I nodded and clung to him, my legs strangely weak. As in a dream I watched the dragon pick up his jewels one by precious one and place them in a pouch of skin beneath his jaw, lastly his precious pearl, which he rolled around his forked tongue for a moment before placing it with the others. He was no longer a blue dragon, he was a pearl-pink dragon, and even the long whiskers on his jaw curled and vibrated as if fired with his new vitality. He gazed around the cave, and then at us, and in his eyes was a remoteness, as if we and the cave were discarded bones and his eyes were on another prey.
"That is all, then. Farewell to my imprisonment, and farewell to you, my deliverers."
With a scrabble of impatient claws upon stone he moved once more toward the opening of the cave.
"Wait!" called Conn. "The gold—the silver—you have left it!" He gestured to the shelves round the cave.
"Keep it: it is yours. You deserve it. The jewels were what mattered . . ." and he was gone, launching himself in a clatter of wings into the sunset.
The wind of his passing scuffled the dust in a spiral over the spot where his jewels had lain. When it settled there was no sign of their presence. It was as if they had never been.
Interlude
Dragon-Sky
In the country of his upbringing they would have recognized the special corkscrewing rocket-rise with the sideways twist, but all the watchers from the cave and the village below could say afterwards was that the dragon ascended like a reversed shooting star with a noise like twenty hungry bears.
A handful of rustic peasants and the seven weary travellers were the only witnesses of the most extraordinary and accomplished display of free—as opposed to compulsory—figures of dragon skyrobatics since the illustrious Master of the Chrysanthemum had given the Millennium Display for the Many-Titled Emperor-of-the-Thousand-Palaces five centuries past and three oceans away . . .
The dragon swam in the air as if it were water and he an otter, a shark, a seal, a fish. He used the air-currents and therms as an acrobat would use bars and trampolines and springboard, and all the while he played with his great pearl as though it were a ball, an essential part of his act, tossing it in the air so that it described milky arcs, letting it fall a thousand feet and diving like a thunderbolt beneath to catch it again.
For what seemed an hour, but might have been no longer than ten to fifteen minutes, the great beast played like a child in the nursery with its first toy, then as the sun dipped to touch the horizon with its burning belly and as the eastering shadows threw their arms across hill and valley alike, he snatched his pearl from the sky, a pearl now pink as an opened rose, stood on his spade-tail for a heart-stopping moment then clapped his wings together like a vengeful cormorant and dived the depth of the mountain towards the village below, the wind of his passing creating a down-draught like a thousand flocking geese at marshing-time. In a flash of fire he incinerated their alarm beacon and burnt the easterly copse.
The villagers cowered together, the men cursing and shaking impotent fists at the fast-retreating sky-climber, the women flapping useless aprons. Only the children cheered and waved. In their maturity, when visiting other villages, the story would crystallize into legend. They would tell of the thunder-crack of his passing, of a red dragon who soared over their impossibly green fields, until the telling became a symbol recognized by all who listened to a tale: an inspiration, a banner, under which princelings would rise to repel invaders, ordinary men would fight and fall, and a usurper unite and divide . . .
But the Master-Dragon's mind had turned from them all—the past imperfect, the passing present. Taking his bearings from the first stars that winked from the eastern sky, he wiped his memory free of time, of disappointment, of frustrations, tucked away his pearl with the other jewels in the pouch beneath his jaw, spun thrice on his spade-tail and then sang his farewell song.
To those watching and listening, dodging the mini-avalanches and fires set off by his rejuvenation, watching stone clatter down the slopes, regarding with dismay the collapsing huts that disintegrated like imploding puffballs, all they heard was an enormous clash and rattle as of giant metal plates tumbled together, a ringing of bells so huge their peals were as sound-sight, ripples of torturing light-noise in a stone-tossed lake—but to the dragon the cacophony was the best music he had ever made, a soaring passion of release from bondage, a paean of praise.
An ascending rocket-burst of flame, crackling in the still air, a rapid climb to five, ten, twenty thousand feet; a moment's hesitation when dying fires fell like shattered stars to the mountains beneath, and then the Master-Dragon shook free and headed east for Home.
The Loosing
Awakening
In spring the young shoots of corn struggle hesitantly from their blanket of earth and poke wary green heads up into the unfamiliar air; too soon, and the frosts nip them black; too late, and they are drowned in the shadows of their bigger brethren, starved of light and nourishment, and shrivel and die. Just as I, the new Thing, was not sure whether I had emerged from the darkness of forgetting to the lightness of an Inbolc or a Beltane. At first I was ill, tossing and turning in fever, waking briefly to moments of lucidity. But before I could reorientate myself, grab hold of life and become better, back I would slide into a haunted black vault of the mind where hope ran down the mazed tunnels of thought, knocking in vain on doors that would not open, with the hounds of Hell baying behind.
They said afterwards it was seven days I was unconscious, sent back into the earth to remember the seed from whence I sprang, but it could have been seven hours or seven years for all I knew. Conn was kept away from me for fear of contagion, for it seemed my skin sloughed away in great strips with the fever. They took away my clothes and burnt them.
When I woke up at last clear-headed, starving hungry, I felt the cold air touch my face with inquisitive fingers: when I put up my own I found my mask had gone, and panicked. Throwing the shift I was dressed in up over my head I screamed: "Where is it? Where is my mask?"
"There now, dearie, what a to-do!" Strong, warm hands pulled up the covers, covered my hands with hers. "No need to take on so! Come, take your hands from your face—"
"They'll see my ugliness! He will see . . ."
"Now, then! Ugliness is a state of mind, and there's none wrong with that face of yours that fresh air and sunlight and a little extra feeding-up wouldn't cure. Got eyes like piss-holes in snow, you have . . . Now, then: that's better! Let Old Nan (what has been chosen to care for you because she's born twenty and buried all but three, survived four husbands and the phlegm and the sores and the runs and vomits and scabs) let her comb out that nice, thick hair of yours and then Megan—she's the youngest, touched a mite some would say, but a grand girl with the sheep—she will fetch some broth and bread. Been told to make a fuss of you, I has, by that nice tall fellow with the sword. Soon as I lets him know you're better he's to come and see you, he says, and all those animals you brought . . ."
Unlike most chatterers her actions were suited to her words and she had me combed and tidied and fed in no time at all, all the while her strangely accented voice, hovering like a salmon in leap on the vowels until you sometimes wondered whether she would ever reach the smooth waters of the consonants, burbled on like a busy brook, soothing and stimulating at the same time. At my insistence she fashioned me another mask, from kidskin, although I could see she was bewildered by the need. In truth her face was so seamed and pocked that it was difficult to identify any features, except for toothless mouth and red nose, so perhaps my physical deficiencies were not so strange to her after all. I made up some tale about being handfasted to Conn, but having made a vow not to uncover my fac
e until we were wed. This made sense to her, full of superstition like all country folk, who must explain away disaster and joy, gain or loss somehow. Their "little people," for instance, seemed to have a hand in everything, from birth to death; and they seemed to prefer these household gods to any other, although Conn found a deserted Christian shrine in the woods to say his prayers by.
Once my mask was on I couldn't wait to see the others again, and indeed the next time the door was left open Moglet was on the bed in a flash, and enthusiastically kneading my chest.
"Look! it's much better . . ." She turned over her damaged paw and now there was only the smallest hollow and increased width among the pink and black pads. "Are you better, too?"
"Been a bit worried about you," said Puddy, from under the bed. "Thought you were . . . Nice to see you. My head is much improved."
"Caw! Bleedin' cold out there!" said Corby, actually managing a flapping ascent to the rafters, and landing safely. "Best off where you are . . ."
"Look at me, look at me!" bubbled Pisky, borne in by Conn. "Twice the size I was already, they say, and eating better all the time. Sir Knight says that if I don't stop I shall have to have a bigger bowl, and the snails are complaining at the extra work—"
Conn sat down on the bed and took my hand. "How are you, Thingummy? We were all worried about you, but they said it was only a bad fever. Still, you've been away from us a whole week, and had it been but one day longer I should have insisted, infection or no, on taking a turn at minding you. How's the back?"
"The back?" I had genuinely forgotten my other deformity with the trauma of the mask. So much had happened in my feverish tossings and turnings, happened, that is, to memory and understanding, that I had had no recall of my twisted and bent spine. Now I sat up as best I could and eased back my shoulders. There was a little crick! as another knob in my spine straightened its alignment and I found that my eyes were on a level a good six inches higher. With Conn seated so near I could look almost straight into those kind, concerned brown eyes.
I saw him glance down in surprise at my front. "Why, you've—" He stopped, confused.
"Got a proper front," said Moglet happily, and pushed painfully against my budding breasts.
"Er—it's better, I think," I said, and I pulled away my hand, that had gone hot and sticky with embarrassment. I pulled up the covers to my chin. "Where's Snowy?"
"Here, dear one," and he stepped daintily through the doorway. A shaft of late sunlight followed him in and ran in admiration down the beautiful spirals of his golden horn and over the waves of his luxuriant mane and tail. "I only come in the village when there are few about, for I reckon a dragon-memory is enough for these simple folk, without having to get used to a unicorn as well. I can make them unsee me for a while, but it is more convenient to stay out of sight in the forest. Glad to see you are recovering . . ."
"But—isn't it awfully cold out there?"
He lifted his head in an unconsciously arrogant gesture. "Unicorns don't catch cold," he said.
* * *
I suppose we were there for about another three or four weeks. Gradually I grew stronger in body, although my mind was still full of darkness. When I got up they brought me woman's clothes, for another thing had happened that had sent me cowering to the floor in terror. Until Snowy explained. I had spent the day in bed, with intervals on the stool at the side, and had been feeling grumpy and unsettled all morning with a vague stomach-ache, then suddenly, as I stood up to practise walking a few steps, I was seized with one of the old pains I had thought gone forever. There was no one with me, as Old Nan was busy baking, Conn had gone hunting with Corby, and the others were holed up somewhere in the warm. The pain hit me again and of a sudden a bright scarlet plop! of blood hit the floor from beneath my shift and then another. In terror I flung open the door and rushed out into the snow, instinctively heading for the forest.
"Snowy, oh Snowy! The pain's come back, worse than ever, and there's blood . . ."
Another moment and he was there, his warm breath on my face, his mane sheltering us both as he bent and snuffed at me gently.
"No, dear girl, it hasn't, not in the way you think. Listen to me . . ." and he told me how I had become a woman, and that what was happening to me now was something I had been waiting for during the seven long years of the stone's captivity. "That is why it hurts so much: it means you are catching up on all those years in one go. Now you are girl-child no longer." He looked sad and I remembered—so many things to remember!—that unicorns appear only to young virgins, never to mature women, and I suddenly understood a whole lot more.
He bent his head and touched my stomach with his healing horn. "There: the pain is gone, and never will be so bad again."
I kissed him, suddenly shy. "I won't . . . I don't mean to . . ."
"I know. I shall be with you till you don't need me any more . . . Now, come: sit on my back and I will bear you to the hut, otherwise you will freeze to death!"
The pain disappeared, but when Snowy turned once more to return to his voluntary exile I noticed a small spot of blood on his otherwise flawless back, like the stain of a trodden berry . . .
At last the snow started to slide from roof and rick, the sun stayed longer with us, fingernails of ice fell with a tinkle from the swelling buds in the trees, and it was time to say goodbye to the village, for we all felt we should move on with the lightening days, though where we had no clear idea. Conn gave the headman three gold coins, a princely sum, for their care of us. He also told him that the dragon had left some treasure in the cave for them—silver and bronze armour, plates and cups (we had the gold coin)—as recompense for burnt thatch and general damage. I could see they could scarcely wait for the snows to melt. The coins and the anticipated treasure were celebrated in our farewell party, which included a roasted steer, mock dragon-fights and much mead, so that it was with a thick head that I turned for my last look at where our quest had ended. The villagers stood a quarter-mile away, still watching us go. I waved once more and then glanced up at the Black Mountain. I could not see the cave, and of a sudden clouds from a warmer air frothed and spilt over the top like scum from a mess of new-boiling bones until all was hidden from view.
The road ahead lay downhill. Once again we heard the tentative song of birds, buds were thick and sticky, and catkins hung like lamb's tails from the willow and everywhere there was promise and hope. Conn sang and the others grew strong and fat, but my heart still lay heavy and full of dread, for I had grown up.
Every day fresh memories arrived with the softening of the days. Sometimes I felt as though my heart would break, for I now knew who I was, where I had come from, some, not all yet, of what had happened in the twelve years before the witch abducted me. I remembered, too, what had befallen my parents and wept the inner tears of one who could only mourn too late. Conn kept glancing at me anxiously but I could not tell him, not yet. And there were the others: I began to appreciate fully what my "release" meant now for, as The Ancient had predicted, whole and free again, they spent far less time with me and I found my eyes and ears and touch and taste and smell not understanding them as before, as if a veil lay between us.
I think perhaps I realized more was to come, so I was not unduly surprised when one spring day we found ourselves in a countryside of rolling downs and there, sitting on a rock as coolly as if he had only wandered a little way ahead five minutes ago, was The Ancient.
Part of me wanted to run and embrace him, part to refute his very presence, to blame him in some obscure fashion for my private world of misery, so I stood and did nothing as the others crowded round him. Conn's sword, Snowy's horn, Puddy's forehead, Corby's wing, Moglet's paw, Pisky's mouth were all exhibited and admired: he did shoot one piercing glance at Conn's armour and then at me, but had the sense not to make any remark.
That night we spent round his campfire and ate better than we had for weeks. The only question he raised was, where were we bound? Had we thought of this? Yes. Come
to any decision? No. It seemed everyone thought everyone else was leading the way . . .
At last Conn voiced all our thoughts. "We—we all thought there must be something else. What, we did not know. Perhaps it was you?"
"Not me," said The Ancient, taking off his red-and-white striped hat, decorated with shells, and scratching his head. "I'm merely here to see the fun . . ."
"The fun!" I exploded, exasperated at last into coherent speech. "What fun do you think it has been for us? Where have you been, that you think that cold and hunger and fear and illness constitute fun? What makes you think that the traumas, the tiredness, the soul-searchings, have been fun? You're just a stupid, uncaring, flippant old man who is concerned with nothing but his vicarious pleasures, and has merely learnt enough so-called 'magic' to think himself immune from us mortal creatures! You are complacent, narrow-minded, cold—" I ran out of words.
The others, except Snowy who merely looked amused, stared at me in varying degrees of horror.
"Magician," reminded Puddy.
"Bit strong," added Corby.
"Special case," remarked Moglet.