Dragons over england, p.7
Dragons Over England, page 7
"Is this true, Mr. Treveylan?" Basil said, hell and damnation in his voice.
My mouth went dry. "Aye . aye, Captain. I was born with the fire knowledge and I have . some knowledge of its use."
"You know how I feel about sorcery on this ship," he said darkly.
"You may cast me to the kraken when we are free of this bay, Captain, but I will do what I must to save this ship and its crew."
"You threaten mutiny?" he demanded, slamming his hand upon the rail.
"No, Captain," I responded, feeling much like the young farmer who had confronted a sea captain in a tavern so long ago. "I plead for a hundred lives."
That afternoon I stood at the prow, Catherine and Lon by my side. Captain Basil himself manned the
wheel and at a nod from him, I stretched my hands toward the expanse of ice between our vessel and the sea. Mustering all my will, I shot streams of flame from my fingers on to the ice, rapidly melting it.
The wind was strong at our backs and the ship moved swiftly through the channel I carved, inch by painstaking inch. The ice reformed behind us an instant after we passed and it took more strength than I thought I had to keep going. At last, with a crack like a rifle shot, the last floe split apart and allowed us to leave the bay and steer into the Frozen Sea.
My last memory of that day was Catherine's smile as the cheers rose from the crew. Her face dimmed before my eyes and I fell to the deck, exhausted.
It would be two days before I awoke again, to find us well on our way to Elvenport.
There is little left to tell of my story. The Daria Marie docked in Elvenport in the early days of Asten, much to the dismay of several Freetrader vessels already there. Berut immediately departed to notify his superiors of our safe arrival, while Catherine stood at the gangplank to bid me farewell.
"My work here is important, or else I would not leave you," she said. "Will we see each other again, Robin?"
I kissed her gently and ran my hand through her hair of flame. "Perhaps you might ask that the Daria Marie be hired to bring you back to the shores of Aysle, Catherine."
She smiled. "But next time, we go the short way."
She reached out and held me close to her. "I never thought I would fall in love with a pirate. It's so . Hollywood. And when my task is done here, I'l'l have to go back to London and somehow I know my old life will seem unreal after this. Do you . do you think you will ever come to my world?"
I looked at her and wondered if I could exchange the sparkle of the sea for that which I found within her eyes. "I fear it will be a long war, my love. And if the seas of Earth have need of one more Corsair, then I would be a fool to deny them."
We parted then with a pledge to meet again. The ship returned to Haven for repairs and much celebration of our victory over the dragon and the Dark. In the months that followed, Captain Basil and Arden would retire from the sea to live off their fortunes, leaving me master of the Daria Marie.
And on nights when the stars dance in the skies, I find myself wondering when the message will come that Catherine waits in Elvenport. And more, I wonder about the world that waits on the other side of that strange bridge of water.
Child of Thunders
Lester Smith
A rumble of thunder faded in the distance. In its wake lay a hush, punctuated by the fall of droplets from rain-washed leaves. The last beams of a summer sun slanted across the glade, filling the air with golden light. They lay in amber streaks across tree boles, and sparkled like candle flames on the wet grass. In their glow, the profusion of wild blossoms dotting the clearing seemed nearly to burn against the green of its lawn.
In the center of the glade, hovering lightly on dragonfly wings, a fairy maiden danced. She was hardly more than a handspan tall, clad in wisps of spider silk, through which her pale skin shone like luminous pearl. Her hair was dark as night clouds. Her arms gestured skillfully as she spun through a complicated series of pas de chat from classical ballet, but her legs hung limp and her face was lined with pain.
Abruptly, she halted her dance. Sighing, she gazed about the clearing, uncheered by its wealth of color and life. Eyes downcast, she fluttered to a mossy boulder set in the middle of a toadstool ring, and settled clumsily upon it, using her arms to arrange her crippled legs before her. Then, hands clasped in her lap and head bowed, she wept, quietly, while the sun set behind her in a blaze of copper clouds.
***
"The problem with most people," Duncan said, "is that they are like a watercourse, always taking the path of least resistance." A youngish man, no more than thirty, he rode his black mare with the easy grace of an expert horseman — reins held loosely, back straight, head high, rolling with the motion of the horse's gait. His gray cloak and hose were clean and well mended; the setting sun shone on his helm, chain mail shirt, and spurs, betraying their meticulous care. A dark, smoothly trimmed beard adorned his solid jaw, and brown eyes gazed coolly upon the surrounding woods from above a Roman nose. A bastard sword hung across his back, atop the cloak, its hilt within easy reach above his right shoulder. The handle of a long dagger hid among the folds of cloak at his left hip.
"But God," he continued, "wants us to stand firm, like lighthouses built on solid rock. That's all a hero is, Philip, just a person who stands firm in the face of trouble."
A few paces behind, a gangly youth rode astride a spotted mule. He too wore gray, but with no arms or armor except a dented buckler and ancient short sword hanging together from the pommel of his saddle. His cloak, tunic, and hose were at the same time both too big and too small. They hung loosely upon his bony frame, but his sleeve ends rode several centimeters above his wrists, and the cloak, while billowy, ended just below his knees. While he sat bolt upright in a flawed imitation of Duncan's nonchalance, his blue eyes darted frequently to the growing shadows beneath the trees,
and strands of black hair clung to the sheen of nervous perspiration on his pale forehead.
"Yes, my lord," Philip stammered. "But — well, it's all very well to stand firm, but how does a person know for sure when he's standing for something right? Everyone always seems to think what they're doing is the right thing. How can you tell when you're right and not just being pigheaded or stupid?"
Duncan reined his horse around and glowered at his young squire. "You study. You listen to your elders, and you search your own soul. Eventually, you come to know for sure what's right and what's wrong. Trust me, people don't have as much trouble telling the one from the other as they'd like you to believe. Their real trouble is in not being brave enough to stand up for what they know is right, but spending all their effort instead on trying to justify the easy way out. But the easy way always leads to damnation."
The mule halted. Philip dropped his eyes and flushed beneath Duncan's fierce gaze. "Yes, sir," he said.
Duncan nodded, gave a grunt of approval, then turned his face toward the sunset. "Night's falling, but the moon's already high," he said, looking upward at the pale wedge hanging in the sky above the trail. "We have several more hours with enough light for our search. We'll keep going until we absolutely have to stop."
He fumbled in a pack for a moment, then drew out a bullhorn. He stared at it for a bit, turning it over in his hands as if reminding himself of how it functioned: a chemical reaction in the batteries would push an electrical current through a coil that caused the horn to resonate with an amplified version of whatever sound was fed into the microphone at the narrow end. He flipped the on/off switch and there was a satisfying, amplified click, followed by a slight ringing of feedback. Lifting the bullhorn to his mouth, he shouted, "Camigwen!"
The name boomed beneath the trees like a thunderclap. Philip flinched.
Eventually, she slept and dreamed. In the dream, she was eleven years old, living in Dublin. She was a pretty girl, though small for her age, with a dancer's posture and a poet's eyes. Her mother took her to see The Nutcracker Suite, and, noting her breathless fascination with the dancers, promised afterward to talk to Father about enrolling her in ballet classes.
Her father, a big, gruff fellow with a florid complexion and the manner of a ruffled crow, a man who eked out a meager living as "Reverend" O'Neil, pastor of a tiny Methodist church in the city, exploded.
"That's all the girl thinks about!" he shouted, tossing his arms in the air as he stalked back and forth across the scarred floorboards of their tiny kitchen. "Frivolity. It isn't enough that she spends her every waking moment with her nose buried in fairy tales. Now she wants to waste even more time, and our hard-earned money, on another frivolous pastime. When is she going to grow up and realize that you have to work hard to accomplish any good in this wicked world?"
Her mother hadn't answered, but simply sat grim-lipped, staring fixedly at her hands clasped on the kitchen table before her, quietly weathering the storm.
"And what good has dancing ever done anybody?" In her dream, he leaned forward and shouted directly into her face. "I'll tell you what it's done; it's led weak people to worship false gods, and to rut like animals before them!
"Life isn't about all play and fun, missy," he said. "It's a testing ground. Those who take it seriously and devote themselves to good works will end up with God in Heaven. But sluggards and dreamers will find themselves dancing right down the wide road to Hell!"
Eventually his tirade had finished, and her mother had gone the next day to work out a bargain with a dance studio, whereby they would give dance lessons in exchange for her mother's work as a janitor. Though the girl threw herself into the classes, she always felt secretly ashamed that her mother had to make such a deal.
Philip clutched the ample folds of his too-short cloak about himself and shivered. Roughly an hour had passed since sunset, and the damp night air was turning cooler. But it was the sight of the corpse that truly chilled him. He stood holding the reins of both mare and mule while Duncan crouched to examine the body. Both animals were skittish. They tossed their heads and pawed the earth, ears flicking at the slightest whisper of wind.
"A messy death," Duncan said. The words came out in something of a hush. He stood, cleared his throat noisily, and continued in a more normal voice. "He was a traveling tinker, from the looks of things." Duncan gestured toward a ragged pack lying a few yards away from the body, with several dented copper pots and a few tools spilled out. "I'd guess he died sometime this afternoon. Must have met up with a bear, the way he's been mauled. His rib cage has been crushed like he was hugged to death."
Philip's eyes flashed white as the mule's. "Why's his skin so pale?" he asked.
Duncan glanced at the boy, then back down. He let out a deep breath. "Blood loss," he suggested finally, "and shock."
Philip shook his head mechanically, his eyes fixed upon the corpse. "It's all shriveled and puckered, too. Like all the juices have been sucked out." He shivered again.
"And look at the tracks." He let go his cloak to point at the earth around the body. It was torn and broken, as if a great spiked wheel had rolled across it.
Duncan bent and pulled a thorn out of the victim's clothing, compared it with another he plucked from the broken earth. "Not a bear, then," he said. "No matter. We'll deal with it if we have to." He took the mare's reins and remounted. The animal sidestepped nervously, but quieted a bit when he patted its neck. "Right now, we have a mission to finish. We'll stop and bury the body on the way back."
Philip tore his eyes away from the dead man, looked up at Duncan, then at his mule. Stiffly, he walked to its side and hoisted himself into the saddle.
Duncan gave him a reassuring smile, then turned the mare and headed onward down the trail. The mule lurched forward, trotting to catch up.
***
In her dream, years passed. She lay in a hospital bed, awash in a haze of pain. Her father was speaking again ... something about mercy. Slowly, the words solidified.
"All discipline seems harsh at the moment," he said. "But in the end, we see it as God's mercy." His voice trembled somewhat, and he cleared his throat loudly.
She struggled to remember what had happened. She heard the sound of pages turning, then her father's voice again, this time more formal, more mechanical. "'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous,'" he read, "'... nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.'"
She had been somewhere. She remembered staring out the window of a train. Going where? The rest of the dance troupe had been with her. They were going to perform somewhere ... in Belfast! She remembered the station, the crowds of people, the anticipation of seeing the city.
She remembered the bomb blast. The people screaming. "That's how you have to think of this," her father said. "I know it's difficult right now, but you'll come to see God's wisdom in it. It's just a way of getting your attention, of removing the temptation to waste your life."
She tried to lift her head. A blaze of agony flashed up her neck and detonated inside her skull, then ran back down into her shoulders. Her spine felt on fire. Her arms pulsed with pain. She couldn't feel her legs.
Her heart seemed to stop when she realized the fact. "But it's not the end of the world," her father was saying. "You'll see that. There are a lot of good works for you to do even from a wheelchair."
She screamed .
***
Philip looked again at the sky. The moon had crawled its way down the heavens. It hung on its side like the hull of a gleaming silver ship sailing the rustling tree-tops of the wood. The course they followed had grown wilder. The trees crowded closer to it on either side. It was dark beneath them, and patches of shadow spilled out across their path, masking stones and roots that made their mounts stumble.
"Are you sure we're headed the right way?" he called toward Duncan's back. "If we are, your sister sure picked an awfully out-of-the-way spot to live. There haven't been any lights of houses or smoke of fireplaces, no signs I could see that anybody at all lives anywhere around here." He raised his voice again, called "What should I be watching for?"
"She has to come to us," Duncan answered. "There won't be any house or fire to see." He halted the mare, took the bullhorn from his pack again, and examined it before turning it on and shouting into it, "Camigwen!"
The night's raucous chorus of crickets and tree frogs immediately fell silent as if the bullhorn had stricken them dead. Only the whispering of leaves in the evening breeze remained. Duncan sat with his head turned to one side, straining to hear any reply to his call. Philip licked dry lips and peered intently at the trees all around, watching for signs of anything approaching. His hands clenched the mule's reins.
One by one, the frogs and crickets regained their voices. Philip let out the breath he had been holding. Duncan glanced at him, cleared his throat, and clucked to the mare, turning her head once more down the path.
"We'd best make what distance we can before the moon sets completely," he said over his shoulder as the mare resumed her gait and Philip kicked his mule into motion.
They rode on in silence for several minutes, during which time Duncan glanced back repeatedly at his squire. Philip followed gamely, but the boy's tension and fear were evident in the manner in which he sat atop the mule, the way he clutched the reins, the jerking of his head when a startled rabbit skittered through the underbrush. It was obvious that the battered corpse they had found earlier in the evening had spooked Philip considerably.
Duncan drummed his fingers on his saddle, rubbed a hand along his bearded jaw. "I suppose I ought to explain about Camigwen ..." He spoke loudly, to carry back over his shoulder above the clopping of hooves and the rasping of crickets. "... why she's out here, why there'll be no house or fire to spot. It's something of a story."
Hearing no reply, he continued. "Camigwen is my junior by nearly ten years. I was out of the house, off to seminary, before she had grown very old, so there wasn't much chance of us being close. She was something of a dreamer, never seemed to have her feet quite on the ground. It rankled our father something fierce. He was a preacher, a stern man, full of fire and brimstone, but his heart was in the right place — though Camigwen could never see that. As she came into her teen years, they clashed quite a lot, neither one really hearing the other, just generating a lot of heat.
"She was always our mother's darling, though. Mother said Cami had a spark of something few people possess, that she saw deeper than most. The way Mother put it, 'Many people don't even look for Heaven. Of those who do, most settle for just a hope of it. But Camigwen actually catches glimpses of Heaven now and again, whether or not she recognizes it as such.'
"So from the time Cami was seven or so, Mother did what she could to provide the means for her to explore whatever current interest she had, whether it was music lessons, or art supplies, or dance classes. And as Cami got older, and Father grew more impatient with her flightiness, Mother did what she could to defuse their fights.
"It was dance that most captured Cami's heart, though. By the time she was seventeen, she had become quite accomplished — good enough, in fact, to join Dublin's most prestigious dance troupe. Mother died shortly thereafter — a heart attack — and Father and Camigwen seemed to take their pain out on each other. Father disapproved of Cami's dancing, said it was irreligious, and they fought about it frequently and bitterly. Finally, Cami moved out of the house and in with another member of her dance troupe — a male member. I think she did it just to revenge herself on Father.
"Then the dance troupe went to Belfast to perform, and an IRA bomb exploded in the train station when they arrived. One of the other dancers died; my sister suffered burns over thirty percent of her body and a spinal injury that left her legs paralyzed.
"She took it hard. Father went to see her a couple of times at the hospital in Belfast, but she threw such a fit that they had to insist he stay away. I had been to Indonesia, working with a missionary group, and came back to see her, but she made them turn me away too. When her burns had healed, they moved her to a private facility to treat her for clinical depression. I stayed on with Father in Dublin, hoping we could all patch things up eventually.
