The dragon said nothing but settled down, elbow-joints protruding. I sat about six feet away, holding Corby"s wing spread with one hand, the other binding him tight to my breast. "Close your eyes," I whispered. "Remember I"ve got you . . ."
The dragon intoned: "Concentrate, bird; will me your burden, my jewel . . ."
"Gawd knows I do," said Corby. ""Tain"t no use to me, Your Worship . . ."
This time the drawing-power was greater, and I found the hair blowing forward round my mask as I hung on grimly to my friend, whose feathers were pulled forward as in a gale. His claws were fastened tight in my drawn- up knees and I had to clench my jaw to stop from flinching. Now the light was a burning, scorching blue, and before I closed my eyes from its intensity it seemed as though great waves were rearing their foaming crests and threatening to engulf us. Suddenly as we hung on there was a crack! as of a breaking branch and once again I was on my back on the cave floor, Corby by my side in a squawking, tangled heap.
Snowy stepped forward and stroked the injured wing with his horn, the bare featherless joint pathetically pink, and slowly the desperate fluttering stopped.
I lay eye to eye with the exhausted bird. "How does it feel, dear one?"
He considered, getting to his feet and bringing the injured wing gingerly to his side, then stretching it again. "No pain. Stiff, but it"s getting easier every minute. Look!" and he flapped the wing-an awkward effort it was true, but still the first movement of the sort he had been able to make since I knew him.
"Thanks again, Your Worship!" and he bowed to the dragon.
We looked over at the sapphire. Unlike the emerald it lay beside, rectangular and deep, the stone was oval and shallow, yet a blue more dense than I had ever seen. It was deeper than the deepest sea, yet on its edges was a lighter, sparkling fringe, like waves upon a sh.o.r.e. Now the great beast turned it in his claws, murmuring lovingly: "A fine journey I had for you, my friend: across the warm oceans, skimming the little islands that rose like pustules on the pocked sea; but I found you where others had hidden you, didn"t I, left to rot as you were with the other jewels. But you were the prize, my beautiful one, as blue as the eyes of the dead who buried you . . ."
I gazed at the jewel with new respect: dead man"s treasure, not such as I would wish to wear. No wonder it had twisted Corby"s wing.
"And now," said the dragon. "The little cat and her diamond . . ."
"No, no, no, no!" howled Moglet, burying her head into my armpit, "I"m afraid! It"s going to hurt . . ."
"Only a little, I promise," I said, comforting her trembling body. "Ask the others, ask Puddy and Corby: was it very bad, you two?"
"Not unbearable, I suppose," said Puddy. He looked very wrinkly and thin.
"More unpleasant than anything."
"Felt for a moment as though my wing was coming out by the roots," admitted Corby, "but the feeling didn"t last long." I noticed for the first time how grey the feathers were above his beak. Strange how fear sharpened the senses, for I was afraid, just like Moglet, yet for her sake hid it.
"There you are, you see?" I exhorted. "And Pisky"s not afraid . . ."
"Then why can"t he go first?" demanded Moglet. "I don"t mind."
"But I do!" interrupted the dragon. "You are next, cat, but you must be willing."
"She is, she is!" I said. "You are really, you know, dear one: it"s just that, like me, you don"t like the unknown. I"m next, you know, and I can"t get rid of this-this dreadful stomachache till you loose your burden."
"It"s very deep," said Moglet, showing me her paw. "It"ll hurt much more than the others . . ."
"Then it"s very brave of you to agree," I said hastily, sensing her weaken. "You must show me how to be courageous."
"I wouldn"t really mind keeping it," she said. "With you to carry me round.
Still . . . If you say your stomach hurts most of the time?"
"Oh, it does!" I a.s.sured her, though at the moment it felt both numb and tingly at the same time.
"Right!" said Moglet and, shutting her eyes, she stretched out her burdened paw in the general direction of the dragon, while fastening the claws of the other three firmly in my sleeve.
"You are sure? You will me freely your burden, my stone?"
"Yes . . ."
The dragon gave her no time to reconsider. A roaring, sparkling wind surrounded us and my back bent further in its hunch as I tried to step no nearer the dragon. Stars wheeled and danced around us, there was a blinding flash as of a veritable avalanche of snow falling about our ears and, before I had to close my eyes against the unbearable aching of the light, I saw a rainbow that spanned the distance between Moglet"s paw and the dragon"s mouth. She howled, an awful sound, her claws tore trails of blood from the outer side of my wrist so that I nearly cried out too. There was a long ripping sound, the light died behind my clenched eyelids, I was on the floor again and Snowy was bending to Moglet"s paw and my lacerated flesh.
"Better now?"
The dragon had three stones now and the latest, Moglet"s burden, sparkled and spiked with a thousand coloured lights as he turned it in his claws. "A rare flight that was, the sands burning bright and the sun a molten dagger in one"s back. They laboured to bring wealth out of the depths, they died in the darkness that this might have light . . ."
I shuddered: I would not willingly wear such. No wonder Moglet hadn"t been able to put paw to ground.
But she was dabbing at my face. "Let go of me, I want to try it!" Already the healing hole was closing up, the blackberry pads drawing together. She seemed heavier, sleeker, pain now forgotten in the s.p.a.ce of two breaths. I set her down, and gingerly at first but then with increasing confidence she set down the once-burdened paw on the ground. "Look! Look!" she cried with delight. "It"s better! Soon be quite well . . ."
"Now you, little wanderer," said the dragon. "You are ready?"
No, I wasn"t. Suddenly gripped by irrational fears I sank down again. It was not only the thought of more pain, sharp and quick-over though it might be, it was also the familiarity of the burden itself, like an aching tooth that, however irksome, is still an understood part of one till removed. Most of all, I think, it was the certainty that once I lost it and regained both health and memory, paradoxically this latter might prove a greater burden than the burden itself.
I was afraid to be given a future so sudden, so different. Better the devil one knew- "Come on, Thing darling," said Conn. "I"ve watched you bravely hold the others, now it"s your turn to be held . . ." and the words-my name clear and "darling"-rang so loud in my ears that body was all unresisting as he reached down and lifted me to my feet, kneeling behind me on one knee, one arm across my thighs, one across my breast. He pressed me back against his chest and his breath was warm on my cheek. "Courage, girl, courage: "twill soon be over and I"m here, your Conn is here . . ."
My Conn! I felt at least one joint of my backbone click as I tried to straighten.
Without further hesitation I pulled my jerkin up with one hand, my trews down with the other and pre-empted the dragon"s question.
"Yes, yes; I give freely my burden, your treasure. Take it, take it away quickly, please!"
I was staring straight at the dragon who seemed to grow immensely tall and then there was fire all about us and toppling towers and men and women crying out in fear. The fire blazed stronger and there was a tearing, twisting pain in my guts that I could not bear. I tried to bring down my hands to cover the agony but somehow Conn was preventing me, and I screamed. With a sound like tearing a snail from its sh.e.l.l, but horribly magnified, I felt my burden leave me and there was Snowy"s horn to numb the pain and take away the sickness. Strangely the greatest discomfort was Conn"s arm across my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which suddenly felt full and tender. I straightened up one crick!
more, drew together my clothes and turned, for an instant, to bury my head in Conn"s shoulder. He patted my back and released me.
The ruby lay in the dragon"s claw and burnt cool as he turned it lovingly. "The temple held it dear, but it was housed in a heathen idol that crumbled to the touch. The priests in their robes cried desecration and the temple dancers fled into the night as it was drawn from their grasp . . ."
I shuddered, and the stone seemed to wink back evilly at me; if I had known what I carried I would have cut it from my flesh like a canker. No wonder it had hurt . . .
"Are you ready, O King of Fish? You I have left till the last because the burden you bear is probably the greatest, my last and most beautiful gain . . ."
That muddy pebble?
"Of course, Lord of the Clouds, Master of the Skies; all my life I have wished to be acquainted with you and your brethren. It had been my ambition to mount the Dragon Falls that I might join you in the skies, but now that can never be. I shall be content to see you a little closer, perhaps to touch fin to scale. Pray, Thing dear, move my bowl nearer . . . so. It will do." In his exuberance bubbles broke from either side of the burden in his mouth. I knelt by his side, my finger in the water.
"You are sure?"
"Sure? Why, of course I am sure! I have been carrying this stone safe for a Dragon-Master and now I yield it with eagerness, with pride!"
The dragon bent closer and I flinched. But he did not notice.
"Here, little brother, take a closer look. Look your fill . . ."
For a moment dragon and fish touched, nose to nose as Pisky rose from the water. He looked so small, so defenceless, so like a gulp for breakfast that I leant forward, ready to s.n.a.t.c.h him away from danger, but he turned on me.
"No, Thing, no! This is my day, my moment that I have waited for so long and you must not spoil it!"
"I was only-"
"There is no need. We understand one another." It was the dragon who spoke, but the words might just as well have been Pisky"s.
"He is so small . . . the wind of withdrawal . . ." I faltered.
"He is stronger than you think. Watch . . . It is given freely, and you are cognizant of the results?"
"It is," said Pisky. "I am. But spare my friends the snails; slow and unintelligent they may be, but excellent privy-servants. And prolific, I hope."
The air grew thick, like the mist that streams between the trees at shoulder- height on a late-autumn morning; then it was as if the moon rose on this same mist, silvering it until it glowed and shimmered with an unearthly light. I saw clear water running, waves tumbling, spray mounting the rocks, horses of sea-foam . . .
There was no sound when the pearl left Pisky"s mouth: it rose like a little moon and hung between them like a sigh. Then the magic disappeared and Pisky sank back in his bowl, his mouth a pained O of surprise and hurt.
Swiftly golden horn touched golden mouth and he sank to the bottom, the snails crowding close for comfort.
The dragon had a huge pearl between his claws-how its sheer size must have hurt poor Pisky!-but he was holding it with reverence, for it still glowed and shimmered and shone like a moon behind thin cloud.
"A hard struggle it was for you, my most precious of all; searching fjords and creeks, inlets and rivers; I glimpsed you beneath tossed waters and running streams; saw you in the reflection of the moon on swollen rivers and high tarns; you were the winter sun on ice, a wraith of summer stars; I tasted you on tumbling stones and in the thickness of reeds; sensed you in the flash of scales, the turn of fin; always you called to me and at last you came of your own free will when I had despaired . . ."
The pearl glowed, and it was a stone I, anyone, would have been glad to touch, admire, hold in one"s hand, bear on one"s breast . . .
"And now," said the dragon, "it is almost time for me to go. But, before I do, I would thank you all again for returning my jewels, my treasure. Because of you, because of your honesty and determination, I am now a Master-Dragon, as the little fish so truly observed." He bowed gravely to each one of us in turn. "Now, I must try my wings: if you will excuse me?" He went to the mouth of the cave and down the steps flexing his bony, leathery, creaky wings, which gusted a powdering of cinder-tasting snow back into the cave. I gazed at the ring of glowing jewels lying on the cave floor and wondered at their gathering, their binding, their loosing. Lying there like that, now that they were back with the dragon, they still seemed to have a magic of their own, a kinship; they seemed almost like a ring of animals who will turn into a tight circle to meet a common enemy, horns lowered and rear protected against wolf or bear . . . Like us, when we bore them- There was a humph!! of flame from the dragon, a series of short, staccato bursts from his rear, as one who has dined too exclusively on pease-porridge, and then he turned to where we watched him, s.m.u.ts on his face.
"A trial flight . . . I think the Lord of the Carp would like to see my world; after all, had he stayed in our country he might well have climbed the Dragon-Falls.
This will only be a subst.i.tute, of course, but I think he would enjoy it. Would you be so kind as to accompany us and carry his bowl?"
He was looking at me, but I wasn"t quite sure what he wanted. Pisky popped his head out of his bowl, speaking like someone who has had a tooth pulled.
"I should like it above all, Thing dear-please?"
"Yes, but I-" I suddenly realized what was expected. Oh, no! I couldn"t, I couldn"t! I looked at Snowy, and he nodded.
"It will be all right. You will be safe. I promise."
So, awkwardly, stiffly, still hunched, I clambered onto the dragon"s back, Pisky"s bowl clutched in my arms, and lay down, my face to the leathery scales, my heart thudding.
"Hold tight!" There was a slithering followed by a sudden sickening lurch. I opened my eyes and my mouth to yell as I saw the mountainside slipping away from me in a sideways slide. My breath was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the wind, my face froze and my cheeks blew inward with the sudden rush of air. There was another lurch that left my stomach behind somewhere and then we steadied and the mountain slid by.
"Sorry about that: trailing-edge muscles weren"t working." I could only just hear the words, for the roar of wind and wings in my ears. My eyes were shut once more and would have stayed so but for a little bubbling voice beside my left ear.
"Isn"t it beautiful? Just like being in a bigger, lighter bowl. Look, far down below are the weeds and the stony bottom, around us the waters rushing over our fins, and above the deep bowl of air beyond the rim of everything . . . Hold me up, Thing, that I may see and remember!"
"Let the King of the Carp see!" said the dragon, and such was the command in his voice that I obeyed at once, sitting up and holding Pisky"s bowl high in my hands, though my fingers were half-frozen: I wound his string round my wrist to make sure he didn"t fall. The rest of me was warm enough, for the huge reptile now exuded warmth, and the inside of my calves were, indeed, becoming uncomfortably hot. But all this was forgotten as I looked about and saw what Pisky saw, but with human understanding.
Below, so far as to take away fear, lay the village we had come from. It was dusk down there, for I could see the little twinkling lights of rush and candle; higher the sun still shone on snowy slopes, but to the west great purple shadows showed glen and canyon as they crept forward like a ma.s.sed pack of wolves towards the lamb"s-fleece snow of the nearer slopes. Black sticks of winter forest covered the lower slopes and iced streams lay like saliva among the black-fanged rocks: but it was all remote, like sand-houses made by children"s hands and I was curious, but not fearful. Nearer, the mountains stood like sentinels and I saw great orange fires burst from the dying sun, so that it seemed that pustules of fever opened on a great sore. No bird flew as high as we and all was silent save for the pumping of the dragon"s fire- bellows, a gentle thrumming, and the whistle of the wind past my ears. I remembered my swim with the seal: as Pisky said, it was like, very like, an ocean of sky.
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 pa.s.sing 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 corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g 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 ill.u.s.trious Master of the Chrysanthemum had given the Millennium Display for the Many-t.i.tled 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sing 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 ap.r.o.ns. 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 pa.s.sing, 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 pa.s.sing 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 puffb.a.l.l.s, 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 pa.s.sion 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 h.e.l.l 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?"