Dragon Heart (2 page)

“How did you get here?” Jeon asked.

“Down the river,” the captain said. “That stream I know, every current and every rock and where to put in for the night. Not … this.”

Her brother put his hand down on the middle of the parchment, as if he would seize it. “Then we will be the first.”

“My lord. With all possible respect—”

“Let's go,” Jeon said. He turned, saw her, and smiled at her. “I can't wait.” He put out his hand to her. “Come, pretty sister; we shall walk along the deck together.”

*   *   *

The first day, with the wind fair, they sailed out of the estuary of Santomalo and along the coast westward. On the leeward side they passed by a white beach covered with driftwood. In the evening they put into a little cove for the night and the whole crew went ashore, where they built a bonfire. Their shouts came faintly across the water to the ship. Jeon and Tirza sat on the deck, and he opened up his pack and got out their supper.

“This is another kind of invasion,” Jeon said. “The ship, I mean. The damned Empire. The castle is full of soldiers. Luka will only go in and out of the castle by the seaways, so he doesn't have to pass by the guards at the door.” Jeon put down his cup and took the flagon and filled it again. The sea breeze patted at them in little gusts. The moon was full, half-drowning the stars. Before them on a cloth the remains of their dinner: fish bones and tails, bread crusts, bits of cheese. Off on the shore the crew moved around their bonfire, settling down in the dark, like sleeping sea cattle. The long, narrow ship rocked gently against its anchor. Tirza was sitting next to him, her head tipped back toward the moon.

“Too bad we have no musicians,” he said.

She sighed. She loved music; she let out a stream of noise that sounded a little like music.

“Anyway, Mother has refused, so far, to go to the altar, for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because she wanted all of us to be there. For a while Luka was gone, out to sea somewhere, you know how he is, but then he came home, and all she could do was claim that she could not marry until you were home, too.”

Tirza gurgled, maybe a laugh. Jeon drank more wine, leaning on cushions. “I doubt this will make her like you any more, that she has to marry when you arrive.”

She nudged him, and she did laugh. Between her and their mother much evil lay, which seemed to bother neither of them. He wondered, as he often did, what understandings Tirza had locked up behind the voice that would not work. He would never know what she thought, nor what she believed. Now she was looking away, the moonlight bright on her face, and babbling, perhaps meaning music. He felt a wash of loneliness, although he had her by the hand, as if he reached through a hole in the wall that surrounded her.

*   *   *

This is beautiful, Tirza thought, and shivered.

They had been sailing west for days, now, every night putting in to sleep in some new place. This was the next new place. A wide, placid bay stretched out before them. The eastern edge rose into a long, dark line of hills, the shore curving deeply away beneath a palisade of sheer black rock, until it swung another arm out again into the sea. Shielded from the rough ocean, the water ran dark blue toward the beach, turned pale blue and green in the shallows, foamed white at the edge. Below the foot of the palisade the constant moving margin of surf separated the water from an arc of pale brown sand.

The crew had hauled down the great triangular sail. The galley stroked steadily in toward the land, the oars rumbling in their sockets. She leaned on the gunwale, looking down over the side. As they passed over the clear, green-blue water, she could see dark clumps in the depths: reefs and rocks. There was a reef directly below their boat now, the lumpy stone waving green with seaweed and alive with fish.

The broad bay was empty, desolate. On the shore, no huts showed, no smoke rose, there were no signs of fire pits or trash. No ships rode on the sheltered water, and no trails climbed the far green slopes.

Yet as they drew closer, all along the clean pale beach, in the driftwood, she could see the sun-bleached ribs and planks of boats. Some of these chunks of wood looked burnt. Down on the bottom in the clear blue depths, as the men rowed steadily across the bay, she saw a boxy stern and part of a thwart poking out of the sand. Nowhere was there a sign of a living man, except those newly come, but everywhere she saw shipwrecks.

She saw fish, also, everywhere, great schools of them. Their silver backs blended into the pale bottom and she found them first by their shadows on the sand. A seagull wheeled above them, screeching. She thought, for an instant, she caught a note of warning in its voice.

Jeon came up beside her. “Isn't this lovely?” He was still a moment, his face grim. “I hate that they are coming here.”

She said nothing, thinking of the parchment and its lines. They would turn all this into lines, too, while she and Jeon, who should protect this place, did nothing. The captain strode up the ship, calling out orders. Three men ran up to the foremast, to take down the slantwise yard. Along the sides of the galley, all the oars but two rose dripping, cocked into the air, and withdrew through their ports into the hull. The galley glided through the calm water toward the beach, the front oars rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

She felt the boat under her quiver slightly.

The captain bellowed, “Steer, will you? What's wrong with you?” He went down amidships, cursing.

From the stern came a wail. The ship hit something under the water; Tirza staggered, and when the deck tipped steeply up she slammed down into the rail.

Jeon sprawled across the deck. She flung out an arm to catch him; he struck the mast and rolled out of her reach. The ship careened sideways. The captain staggered and came up against the mainmast, buckling her house of cloth around him. Tirza was holding tight to the rail with both hands; a sailor rushed past her and dove overboard. She twisted, looking for Jeon, and saw him huddled facedown under the stern rail.

She felt her grip on the gunwale slipping. She hung over the rail. A wash of salt water broke over her. She rocked back up again into the air, gasping. Below, the water was churning and leaping, thrashed to madness, and then up through the chaos came the dragon.

He was red as new blood, big as the ship. The enormous horned head reared up into the air, borne high on the long neck, and the shoulders thrust through the water. Tirza struggled to turn to go to Jeon; he still lay on the deck down below, wedged against the footing of the tiller, and she lunged toward him, and then the dragon's jaws parted and a gust of green flame erupted from its throat.

The fiery stream hit the deck of the ship and it burst into flame. From under the deck came the screams of the oarsmen trapped down there. Tirza stretched toward Jeon, veiled in the fire, and the dragon struck the ship and heeled it over, and this time it broke in half.

The stern lurched up, and Tirza fell overboard. She plunged deep into the water; in her ears the constant roaring faded to a muted hum. She came up a few yards from the blazing bow of the galley, the glare in her eyes, the heat beating on her face. The sea was steaming. In the wild thrashing waves she could not swim; she could barely keep herself afloat. She flailed out with her arms, trying to claw her way through the broken battering waves. Something struck her in the side and drove her under. She swam up, and her outstretched arm caught something solid and she clung to it and pulled herself up to the air. A moment later she realized she was clutching a dead body.

Even recoiling from it, she looked to see if it was Jeon. Then from just above her the huge red head drove down and took the corpse away, so close she saw her reflection in the fierce slits of its eyes.

She screamed, clawing backward. The beast loomed over her, enormous, its red scales streaming. She saw its head dart down beyond her again and rear up, a man clutched in its jaws. The sailor was alive, thrashing, his mouth open, and the dragon flipped him up into the air, so that he came down headfirst, and swallowed him whole. The huge maw swung around again. Away from her. She struggled in the furious water, trying to swim across the tow, but the crashing directionless waves carried her swiftly always closer to the dragon. Her ears were full of roaring and screaming. She could not breathe; salt water stung her nose. She saw the wedge-shaped red head rise again, another man in its teeth.

Then the surge of the water brought her directly against the dragon's side. Her fingers scraped over the slick red scales, trying to find a hold. Above her, along the beast's spine, rose a row of giant golden barbs, and she lunged up and caught one and held on.

The beast was snapping at some other swimmer. Clutching the spine, Tirza was borne higher up into the air. Below her she saw the bow of the ship but not the stern. Nothing of her brother. Below her, the water was full of men, some drowned, some screaming and waving their arms, and some trying to swim, and the dragon caught another, and another, its head darting here and there at the end of its long, supple neck. She wrapped her belt around the spinal barb, to stay on, the barb thick as a tree bough, polished smooth and sleek as gold; she was sick to her stomach; she could not breathe; she knew that Jeon was dead, that they were all dead. She would die next. The beast whirled and her head struck the barb hard enough to daze her. The sky reeled by her, and then abruptly the dragon was plunging down again into the sea.

She flung her head back, startled alert, and fought to untie her belt. The wet knot was solid. Just as the sea closed over her head she managed to draw in a deep lungful of air.

The sea rushed past her. The light faded. They were going down, steadily down. She looked up, and far over her head she saw a body floating limp in the shrinking patch of pale water. Then the dragon was swimming sideways, and the water was rushing in one direction like a river, through some deep, cold place.

The light vanished. In the pitch-darkness, surging along on the dragon's back, she could not imagine an end. She had to breathe. Her lungs hurt. The dark water rippled on her skin. Her arms were wrapped around the barb, her body flying along above the strong-swimming beast. She counted to herself. Surely something would happen. When she got to ten she counted again. Her lungs ached. She could see nothing. Strange lights burst in her eyes and were gone. Nausea rose in her throat. Then the dragon was swimming upward and above them was sunlit water.

She counted again, and at eight she burst into the light and the air.

Her whole body shuddered, taking in great gulps of breath. She clung to the barb, looking around her. They were in a lake, or a lagoon, surrounded by high cliffs, the water salt but calm. She realized she was inside the headland, that some passage beneath the sea cliff connected this lagoon to the sea. Ahead of her the golden barbs ran up the huge coiled neck of the dragon; it was swimming toward the beach, a strip of sand at the foot of a pleated black cliff.

She tore at her belt; with a leap of relief she saw the cloth had frayed almost apart in the wild ride, and with her fingers she ripped away the last fibers just as the dragon reached the shallow water. She plunged down the red-scaled side and ran up onto the sand.

The black cliff there rose impossibly high and steep. But its sheer face was runneled and creased, and she ducked into the nearest of these seams, back into a narrow darkening gorge that bent sharply to the left and then pinched into nothing, a cage of rock.

Far enough, she thought. She was only a few feet from the beach, but the opening was narrow and the beast couldn't reach her here, and the bend might shelter her from the flames. She crept cautiously up nearer the opening and peered around the corner, to see out.

The dragon had lain down right in front of her on the sand, its great head only about ten feet away. So it knew she was there. But it stretched out, relaxed, well fed, half-asleep. She leaned against the rock wall behind her and looked it over.

At ease, the beast sprawled with its neck coiled, its head between its forepaws, arched claws outstretched, each claw as long as she was. The massive bulk of its body curled away, its tail half in the water still. The red arrow-shaped head lay half-turned toward her, the eyes closed. A glistening horn thrust up above each of its eyes, which were rimmed in gold, the wide, curled, oddly delicate nostrils also gold trimmed. The long red neck led back between the high, round ridge of shoulders with scales a yard across. Each scale was glossy red, gold edged, at the center a black boss. Below its barbed spine the scales overlapped in even horizontal rows, smaller with each row, red squares in golden outline. As they shrank, the black boss at the middle became smaller and fainter, the gold trim thinner; until the scales low on its sides were red alone.

She watched the dragon until the daylight was gone. Once, in its sleep, its jaws parted and gave a soft greenish burp and a little round stone rolled out. Still sleeping, its red tongue licked over its lips and it settled deeper on the sand.

The sun went down. In the night, she thought, she could escape and she edged closer to the beach. Just as she reached the mouth of the crevice the dragon's near eye opened, shining in the dark, fixed on her. Tirza scuttled back into the deep of the crevice, all her hair on end. She thought she heard a low growl behind her.

She wept; she wept for Jeon and even for the Imperial men, and for herself, because she knew she was lost. At last she slept a little. When she woke, it was morning and she was so hungry and thirsty that she went back to the mouth of the crevice.

The dragon was still there. It stood on its short, heavy legs, looking away from her. The sun blazed on its splendor, the glowing red scales, the curved golden barbs along its spine. Then the narrow-jawed head swung toward her, high above her on the long neck. Between its wide-set eyes was a disk of gold. Its eyes were big as washtubs, the black pupil a long vertical slice through the red silk of the iris, the haw at the inner corner like a fold of gold lace.