Chapter 15: Chapter 15: No Way Out

Murtagh mumbled, talking to himself. “All I really need are my books, a blanket, my flask for water, and food.”

He left his prized silver comb and mirror, his plate and cup, his second pair of boots, everything he'd accumulated in the ten years he'd been at Castle Togair. With the books, blanket, a loaf of bread stuffed into his pack, and his flask tied to his belt, he left the castle. In Tirikan, I'll board a ship for the Spice Isles.

“Fine day,” said the guard at the gate.

“Most certainly it is,” Murtagh replied.

Mile after mile he walked.

Along the way, the smithy and the smithy's wife said a loud hello, “Good day, Seer.”

The seller of herbs and medicinal remedies—made to stop and chat. “I found a mushroom. Such a mushroom. I've never in all my days seen the like. Oh, how beautiful. I didn't want to pluck it. Larger than my open hand it was and the palest peach color. I'm confident it will work to soothe gout, perhaps even palsy, or—"

“Forgive me, I must hurry today,” Murtagh said, hustling along. As the apothecary disappeared behind a bend, Murtagh cursed under his breath. “I am too well known.”

In the late afternoon, three young women, gossiping, their dresses cut low to reveal the rounded tops of their young bosoms, bowed their heads and giggled out, “Good day, Seer Murtagh.”

“Good day,” he nodded.

Toward nightfall he encountered two guards from the castle. “Good eventide to you, Seer Murtagh. Didn't think to see you this far from the castle.”

“Yes, I'm on castle business.”

“Shall we go with you? It will be past sunset when you get back.”

“No, no. I'll be fine.”

“It's no trouble.”

Murtagh's voice shook. “Please, I assure you. I'll be fine. Now, I must be on my way.”

When dusk settled on the land, he turned and entered the forest. At once, the trees shaded out the waning light. His tired feet stumbled over a rock, then a branch. He hit the ground with a muffled thud. Wearily, he patted the earth beneath his head. “I am reduced to dirt for a pillow.” Spreading his blanket, he was asleep within seconds.

The next morning, he stretched and moaned as every muscle in his legs cried out. After he shoved his swollen feet back into his shoes, he drank the last of his water. Thankfully, he found a small stream after only a quarter-mile walk. Wetting his beard with the cold water, he shaved it off and cut his shoulder-length, shaggy, gray hair until it lay oily, short, and flat against his head. Groaning and hungry—the bread long since eaten—he dragged himself forward, walking miles on his weary feet until he again dropped exhausted onto the hard ground to sleep.

The next morning, the toe of a fine leather boot in his ribs woke Murtagh. He looked up into Lord Togair's face, rigid with fury. Slowly, Togair knelt beside him. Cupping a hand behind Murtagh's head, he brought Murtagh's ear to his own mouth and whispered, “For ten years I've paid you. Now, when your training and your,” he spat the next word, literally spitting into Murtagh's ear, “EDUCATION, can be of some use, you decide to flee? Let me be clear, SEER, if you do not protect my family from that dragon, you will be the first to die.”

Then Lord Togair rose and commanded the captain of guard, “Ten lashes.”

“Please, my lord . . .,” but Togair merely looked bored as two of the guards tied Murtagh's wrists together and looped the rope over a branch of a tree until he was forced up on his tiptoes. They cut open his shirt. When the lash fell the first time, his scream filled the forest, launching dozens of birds into the air.

When his back could bear for him to sit on a stool, Murtagh called Saoirse to his room in the eastern turret, saying, “It is time for your lessons.” When she arrived, he pointed to the floor; not to the stool she usually sat on, but the floor. “Sit.” She obeyed, sitting cross-legged on the cold stones, her eyes staring at the cloud of smoke swirling about his head, its ugly purple-brown color sending chills of dread down her spine. Her stomach ached. The beautiful silver strand she'd seen only days before was gone, replaced by hundreds of black threads, coiling like snakes.

“Do you know what you are?” Murtagh spoke quite softly, but his next words hit her in the face as if he had shouted them. “You are magic! You are the reason the dragon came here the day you were born.”

Saoirse trembled as Murtagh's words pummeled her like fists.

“You are the reason it burned your father's back and killed twenty-three people!”

Saoires trembled. She bowed her head and rounded down her shoulders, growing ever smaller. She tried to scoot away across the floor, but Murtagh—with darts of pain shooting across his back—got off the chair, bent down and grabbed the crying child's shoulders, digging in his fingers, bruising her. “A dragon just attacked our neighbors, attacked a little boy; that's your fault, too! When it comes here, you are going to give yourself to it. Do you understand? You are going to let it eat you!”

She lifted wide, frightened eyes to his face. “No. No.”

He shook her, jerking her head back and forth. “If you don't offer yourself to that dragon, it will kill your father and mother. Do you want that?”

Desperately, she twisted, trying to break free.

“Don't you care about the people in this castle? Don't you care about your mother and father?”

“I don't want the dragon to eat me.”

Murtagh's aura expanded, filling the room. Sound, like the deafening roar of the surf, assaulted her. To block it out, to block it all out, she closed her eyes and clamped her hands over her ears.

He yanked her hands down and, with his lips barely an inch from her ear, said, “It doesn't matter what you want.”

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His aura threatened to blind her, and the terrible color sound to drive her mad. She shouted back at him, “It won't eat me, it won't. I'll hide.”

“Stupid child. You can't hide! It can smell you!”

He released her, throwing her backward. “You're selfish. You don't care about anyone but yourself. Get out!” He pointed toward the door. “I can't stand to look at you.”

Crying, Saoirse fled down the stairs to the main hallway, turning away from the sound of her mother's voice, “and new uniforms for the kitchen staff . . .,” fleeing down the servant’s staircase and out into the garden. In her frantic state, the colors of the garden revealed themselves.

She hid behind a lilac tree, her back pressed up against the stone of the garden wall, her bottom sitting on the cool, moist soil. Green surrounded the tree and its branches and every leaf. She closed her eyes—and the music came, not the loud gong of her father's fear, or the roar of Murtagh's betrayal, but the sweet melodies of nature, of animals and insects and plants. Squirrel notes played on a xylophone, each one staccato and hopping. The birds had violins under their wings, the melodies separate, rising and falling as they flew, going quiet when they alighted, playing in harmony when they chirped. She closed her eyes, listening, letting the music like waves wash over her. She sank into it, swept by its currents.

A low humming . . .

A frog?

She opened her eyes.

What? A leaf?

Flicking the soft, decaying leaf over, she dug a finger into the soil beneath. A smile curled up the sides of her mouth.

An earthworm.

A sound brought up her eyes. Peeking through the branches, she saw the faintest hint of a blue smoke, like unshed tears. Scrambling, she left her hideout to appear before Alyse, her skirt dirty from sitting on the ground, her eyes red, her hair decorated with the petals of a lilac blossom.

Alyse dropped her sewing back into her basket. “Saoirse?”

“Murtagh knows . . . ”

Taking Saoirse into her arms, kissing the top of her head, Alyse let Saoirse cry herself out. When only the hiccupping tears were left, Saoirse solemnly raised her head. She untangled herself and stood in front of Alyse, her father in the proud line of her strong chin. “Murtagh said I have to let the dragon eat me.”

In her lap, Alyse's hands clenched themselves into fists, her aura turning blood red. “No, you do not!”

“But if I give myself to the dragon, father won't get burned, and the castle will be safe.”

As Alyse knelt in front of Saoirse, her eyes turned fierce, giving her beauty a hard edge, as if the shine on her hair, and her bulging breasts were a cleverly crafted disguise, hiding a soul of steel. “Well, I suppose if you're convinced that you need to give up, we might as well hang up banners and signs saying, ‘Magical Person Lives Here.’ Perhaps we could get that dragon to come and eat you tomorrow.”

“Stop it. It's not a joke!” Saoirse turned to run, but Alyse grabbed her.

“You're right, it's not. So quit your crying.”

“No one can fight a dragon!”

“Really? You kept that boy alive. What was his name?”

“Aonair?”

“Yes, Aonair. You saved him. You did that, Saoirse. Now tell me what that blasted Murtagh said.”

Haltingly, Saoirse told Alyse about Murtagh, even about his ugly aura and the terrible roaring sound.

“Well, if he knows . . . ” Saoirse cringed as Alyse's aura filled with an orange-brown smoke the color of diarrhea. “Perhaps we can put him to use. Saoirse, years ago there were schools to train the seers.”

“Really? Are there still schools?”

“Only one. And Murtagh graduated with honors and accolades. Time for Murtagh to do more than tell you stories.”

Saoirse had never seen anyone's aura look quite that disgusting. “You really don't like Seer Murtagh, do you?”

Alyse's face curled into a grimace as if she'd just eaten vomit. “I'll be having a chat with the learned seer.”

“How are you going to get him to help me?” Saoirse asked, “He hates me.”

“Oh, I'll not be talking to Seer Murtagh about you. No,” she said. “I'll be talking to him about his sister.”

 

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