“Get Marcus,” I whispered, trying to pull out a particularly deep dagger that had pierced my chest.
“Can I leave you?”
“He’s near. Just yell out the window for him.” I closed my eye and concentrated on calling him, too. The urgency in our summons brought him at a run and he came into her room without knocking. After one look at me, he pulled out his magister’s bag concocted a healing potion that he carefully poured down my gullet and on the wounds. I felt dizzy and then sleepy.
He ordered Roelle to make me a nest and gently placed me on a bed of soft wool. “He needs to rest and let the potions work. Roelle. Tell me what happened?”
Shamefaced, she explained and to his demand, she showed him the portrait under the cloth.
“I see,” he commented and placed a chair under her doorknob. “We need to sit with him tonight. In case the spell reverts and he grows larger.” He peered in at me. “Raven, how do you feel?”
“Sleepy,” I muttered wanting to stretch but it hurt too much. She stroked my chest with her finger and the rhythm relaxed me further. I yawned a puff of green smoke that escaped me.
“Sleep, my Dragon Sprite,” she murmured. I closed my eye, dreamed that I traveled through the deep Forest of Arden with my hand tucked into hers, that I ran on two strong legs, and was wholly human.
In my dreams, I remembered the taste and feel of a woman’s lips and the play of human muscles, mortal frailties. Although in my Dragon scales and bones, I was one of the most powerful creatures known in existence, I wanted my old form back with a passion I’d forgotten since I’d roamed Amber’s skies.
In the morning, I opened my eye, stretched and flapped my wings to stir the air, waking my two erstwhile guardians and friends.
“Marcus? Roelle?” I asked climbing to the top of the chest and perching on the rim. “Are you awake?”
“Aye,” both agreed.
“I’m in.” I told them to their stunned faces. I was equally stunned when they explained they had no idea I needed convincing to join them on this quest.
The first thing I wanted to know was whether Marcus could spell me back to my original size as being bird sized was a definite danger. I missed my forty-foot splendor.
We exited Roelle’s room (with me tucked inside her bag once more) to commandeer the north tower and Marcus put me back to normal. My wounds were gone with them, the soreness and redness. I flapped my wings and soared up into the skies, rapidly disappearing from sight.
Chapter 3
Before I had traveled a league or found breakfast, I was dive bombed by a particularly ugly stone gargoyle and I didn’t mean ugly as in appearance although he was that, too. Murphy had found me and he was in a vicious mood. Brought on no doubt, by my disappearance and lack of response to Random’s summons.
He had the power to make my existence miserable even in this form. Although I could dispatch him with one bite, he wasn’t afraid of me. He landed on my back, reached forward to grab my eye horns and steered me back to the Castle. His heels dug into the muscles where my wings joined my shoulder and using them as spurs he goaded me to drop heavily into the bailey. I was so pissed I didn’t check to make sure it was empty first and nearly squashed a pair of practicing armsmen.
Murphy thumped the back of my head and he used his stone form to do it. It hurt. Rather than admit pain in front of the guards, I turned my head around and snarled. He wasn’t impressed at my show of teeth and I wasn’t about to break any on his stone fists. I sulked.
“Good boy,” he said flatly and dropped to the ground reverting to his gray humanlike skin and form. He was still ugly but in the way that a beautiful sculpted piece of art could be hideous as well as beautiful. “You dismiss your Liege Lord’s summons, Raven?” He asked in his gravelly voice. “Have you so little respect for your father? Your grandsire and great uncle?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Murphy. I remember Royal protocol. Look, I was busy elsewhere. I was on my way as soon as I could. You know I only move about during daylight hours.”
“I’ve seen you at night, flying over the realm,” he pointed out.
“It’s not the physical me.”
His mouth dropped open. “You speak!”
“Oh yeah. Marcus found some kind of spell and fixed that. I don’t need Ghostwheel.”
“That’s good. Merlin is having some issues with Khafra and has sent Ghost to spy. I’ll be taking over for him.”
“Great,” I said dryly. “Do I get to piss on my own?”
“Do dragons pee?”
I lifted my leg and left a huge puddle in the bailey’s sand that stubbornly refused to drain. I would have pissed on him if I thought I could get away with it. “What’s this secret mission that the King wants me to do?” I asked.
Murphy grinned. “Secret mission? What gave you that idea? He wants you and me to fly out to the Graylin Peaks and survey the mines for bandits.”
“Graylin Peaks! That’s a week’s journey even by my wings!” I protested.
“We’d better get going then.”
“Murphy, I can’t,” I started, thinking furiously. “I can’t be that far away from the Unicorn’s Bower at night for a week, let alone the time to fly out and back plus however long the actual mission would take.”
In truth, I had not been away from the Castle or the woods for longer than a night’s journey. I wasn’t sure what would happen out of reach of the Unicorn’s magic. Her magic kept the dragon’s body alive and me in it.
“Oh,” he said thoughtfully. “Well, let’s go ask her.”
“Huh?” I asked stupidly.
“You can talk to her, right? She’s your mum? Let’s go ask her.”
I heard the approaching footsteps of a group of people and one I recognized among all others. I turned around (carefully) and bowed to the Queen and her husband, the merry red haired, short jokester called Random. Vialle kissed me on the snout, her aim unerring even though she was blind.
“Raven, my dear. How are you?”
“In the pink,” I said but refrained from smiling as imagining that was a scary sight. She laughed and I caught the image of a great terrible lizard bedecked in pink scales.
“Your Majesty, surely not a lizard,” I protested, cringing. With my luck, she’d sculpt me in that shape and I’d become a household staple like a saltshaker.
“Raven,” Random snickered and then frowned. “Murphy, I thought you’d be getting ready for your trip to Graylin by now.”
“Seems there’s a problem, your Majesty,” Murphy started his gray eyes narrowed and suspicious. I don’t know how he knew when I was up to something, but he always did. I couldn’t get away with anything.
“Raven says he can’t leave the environs of the Grove for more than a day.”
“Oh.” They exchanged looks. “Perhaps the salt mines? There was talk of a riot. Perhaps the sight of a Black Dragon will quell their larcenous desires?”
“We’ll see to it, Majesty.”
“After that, the Dresden Plaines need to be fired. Perhaps Raven could see to that as well?”
For the next two weeks, the King and Murphy had something for me to do every day. I wasn’t exempt from their chores until it was time to lay my head down at night and sleep. I was not sure why dragons needed to sleep unless it was because my magical body needed to replenish it’s ‘whatever’ but as soon as the sun went down, the urge to hibernate became a powerful compulsion.
I didn’t get to see Marcus or Roelle. Not even when it was time to eat. Murphy made sure I ate on the wing or in the forest. There was no shortage of deer and he showed me plains of huge creatures like buffalo but with horns as large as a Texas steer. Colored piebald and tasted like chicken.
I expelled so much fire that I actually ran out and developed a craving for blue stained dirt that I honed in on with my dragon radar. It was found in several spots on the mountain slopes; after I gorged on it, I belched flames and farted explosions of pure methane that ignited at the slightest s
park. Luckily, dragons don’t get heartburn. I called it bluestone and Murphy named it firestone although in texture, it was more like dirt. It tasted like candy and I ate it until I was suddenly sick of the flavor.
I was supposed to ask the Unicorn if I could leave Amber’s borders but every time I sank into sleep, I only slept. I didn’t roam her bower, as her companion-it was almost as if she were avoiding me. I was afraid of her answer, afraid it just might be true and I would not be able to leave with Marcus and Roelle.
I’d heard that she was going home for a month as the last of her seven brothers was being married and that Marcus was going as her escort. Along with a select group of guards and King’s emissaries. Random was very conscious of his duties to his barons and lords and would never slight them by sending only a gift. I wanted to send something but had nothing. No dragon hoard, gems, or booty.
“Murphy?” I turned to the gargoyle perched on a rocky outthrust somewhere to the south of the Forest of Arden. I’d been pulling up two hundred foot trees for Julian’s ship builders and was tired. Amazed that I could get tired. Of course, I had denuded a good portion of the woods.
“What?” he asked lazily. He wasn’t tired. He’d spent the morning on my back, letting me do the work, the flying, lifting, hauling and the stacking, etc., etc., etc. while he sat on his ass pointing.
“I want to send a gift to Roelle’s brother for his wedding.”
“So?”
“I have nothing.”
“You have this,” he flicked at my scales. Black and hard as diamonds. “Four would be enough for a shield. A Dragon Shield would be a wondrous thing to a young knight. And you shed them frequently.”
“I do?”
“Haven’t you seen the pages scurrying round picking them up? And the Dragon Guards all have armor with pieces on their mail. It is a great honor to own one of your bits of dandruff.” He mocked me and I scratched at my jaw with a hind foot, nearly knocking him off the rock with my tail.
“I thought more like a gemstone that he could sell,” I mused. “But scales would work, too. I wonder if I could pull one off.”
Delicately, I inserted a clawed finger under a nicely curved piece on my flank that was nearly as large as a shield itself. Arrggh. It was like pulling off a fingernail. Maybe not. “I think I’ll wait for them to fall off,” I mumbled.
“Dragons molt only a few times in their lifetimes, Raven. They would be extremely vulnerable in that state. Easy to kill. Your major scales-those over your breastplate and organs would be the last to fall.”
“How do you know all this when even I don’t?”
“I’m a gargoyle, Raven. First cousin to a dragon on our world.”
“There are no dragons on our world,” I said bitterly. “Not here, not on earth or anywhere. I’m destined to be alone forever.”
“Feeling sorry for yourself, Raven?” he questioned. “Perhaps, you have too much time on your hands. Julian asked if you could lend a hand with the harbor. It needs dredging and I told him you would be happy to help.”
“No,” I said softly. Then, more loudly. “NO! No, I’m not dredging the harbor, I’m not cutting down ship’s masts and I’m not burning off last year’s grass and weeds! I’m a bloody Dragon for God’s sake, not a fricking plow horse!”
I flew off back to the forest outside the castle and went to the Unicorn’s Bower to sulk. Once inside, not even Murphy could enter and I was blessedly alone. Since it was still daylight, I did not sleep nor was I bound by her enchantment.
She came to me, delicate, ethereal but all the same deadly, that sharp spiral horn ready to impale any threat.
“Mother,” I spoke and she sat back as she heard my voice as well as my thoughts. “Mother, what are the restrictions placed on this form?”
She dissolved and became the human woman I barely remembered from my childhood. “Raven, you are partially correct in your assumptions. Darkness is always a hazard for you as that is when my power wanes most and you are weakest. But your Dragon body is born of the Pattern as well as the Logrus so wherever it exists so do you exist. You will be able to function in darkness if your desire is strong enough. Where is it you wish to go?”
“Marcus has found, maybe, a way for me to become human again.”
“You were never human, Raven. You were born of Chaos and Amber. You only lived on the shadow earth but are not of it,” she returned softly.
“I want to be human, mother,” I said thinking of Roelle and her kisses. Of the portrait of me in her bedroom. I turned my agonized eye towards her face. “There’s not even hope for me as a Dragon! I’m one-of-a-kind! I can’t can even find a mate!” She hugged me and to my surprise, her arms went around my chest, her head was tucked into my chin.
“I hold you here, Raven,” she soothed. “Here, you’re forever as I created you, as perfect as you ever were.”
“But, I’m not alive!” I cried out and left her. The moment my body left her bower, I became the Black Dragon again.
Chapter 4
Midweek found me hiding from everyone, not an easy thing to do when you’re a forty-foot Dragon. I solved the problem by convincing Marcus to shrink me down again so I could escape everyone’s attention. I found out when both were leaving for the trip to her brother’s wedding and sneaked a place among her things. The palace was in an uproar, after two days of my absence both Murphy and the King were frantic. Even Vialle could not hear my heart beats. As a bird sized Dragon, they must have been as rapid as a bird’s.
To our dismay, Murphy ordered the wagon train emptied and searched even when Rinlon pointed out that there was no way I could hide in it. He even sent a magic diviner to test the animals to see if I’d been magicked to look like a horse. As if.
After a further fruitless day of searching, the party was allowed to leave with Murphy flying guard overhead. I stayed hidden until he left us after another day’s travel. By the second night, I was dizzy from thirst and hunger. Barely managed to claw my way out of the barrel of oats that the wagon carried for the horses.
My ears heard the squeaking of mice below me and I set about hunting down a score of the tasty tidbits. At least in my smaller size I was more able to feed myself. Thus fortified, I zipped around the campsite stretching my wings.
The party consisted of two wagons, three drivers and four grooms to care for the two teams. A squad of guards, Roelle, Marcus and a valet/body servant for her. As if she needed help with her hair and toilette but she was, after all a Baron’s daughter and would be treated as such. They had erected two tents, one for Roelle and the other for gear, cooking, saddles and equipment with the men sleeping under their own bedrolls. Which made it easy to reach Roelle but harder to associate with Marcus.
He was hugging one of the four campfires and doing most of the cooking. It was an orderly camp and even though Amber was safe from bandits and skullduggery, the Sergeant-at-arms had a patrol marching around the camp’s boundaries. Between the bows, swords and pikes, I doubted anything but a Chaos Demon or Dragon could get through our lines.
I flew in the tent’s smoke hole and nearly suffocated myself. My coughing fit brought the guard to Roelle’s flap to inquire if she was all right.
“I swallowed wrong,” she told the young soldier and let me land on her forearm. I folded my wings neatly alongside my body and preened. She brought me over to her cot where the oil lamp glowed and hissed.
“Where have you been? Marcus and I were worried sick. No one’s seen you in three days,” she whispered.
“I was hiding in the barrel of oats. Dry and dusty, too. I nearly died of hunger and thirst,” I complained.
“Have you eaten?” She pointed to a bowl of stew and I picked through it pulling out the chunks of rabbit. Marcus’ rabbit stew was delicious. I ate until my belly bulged and I burped.
“You little hog,” she laughed. “You’re going to bust open.”
“You should try going without food, Roelle,” I snapped. “I did. Many times, my master st
arved me into compliance.”
“I didn’t know, Raven,” she said sadly. “You never told me what happened to you, you never had time. I asked your father and Prince Corwin but both of them told me to ask you, that if you wanted me to know you would tell me.”
“It was horrible, Roelle. He did things to me no human should have to experience.” I shut my memories on that segment of my life for that person no longer lived. “How do you plan on leaving your father’s estates and traveling to Khafra?”
“We thought you could Trump us there.”
I flew up to the roof vent on the thermal from her stove. Studied the inside of her tent, which was set up almost like a mini cabin. She even had a portable commode whereas the men had to make do with the woods. She’d packed light for herself but the wagon train was loaded with wedding gifts and would make a tempting target for any bandits. She was dressed in sensible riding breeches, leather jerkin and vest and I’d seen her wearing a fur-trimmed cape on the frosty mornings.
“Where are we headed?” I asked. Even though I had flown over every inch of Amber, I didn’t know the lay of the land. I knew vaguely that her father’s barony lay somewhere to the west over the Beautiful Mountains, the direct opposite from the Forest of Arden.
Roelle got up, went to a leather saddlebag that was draped over a chair and pulled out a neatly folded maps on vellum. She spread it flat on her table and used the bowl of stew, her oil lamp and a shoe to hold it down.
“We’re here,” she pointed to a valley on the far right and I could just see the borders of Amber’s city. Arden was just a few trees at the far left of the map. “The Plains of Argose separate the first ridges of the mountains. The river Aar that we’ll cross at Dindeen. The towns of Argent, Vanadium and Elthold. The Marketplace and the Horse Clans. Lastly, the Barony of Loest. It’ll be a two-week journey unless we push it.”