Chapter 2: MAGIC!

Twice dawn had lit the sky and still Lady Togair was not delivered. By mid-morning of the second day, she laid exhausted on sweat soaked sheets, her cheeks flushed. Only twenty-two, her waist-length hair was spun gold, her eyes a clear sky blue. Even now, when pain etched furrows in her brow, she was stunning.

“Draga Vymn! Draga Vymn!” The loud cry easily carried through the open window and into the birthing room.

"It's Old Crispin in the tower." Nana spoke to herself. But the ancient words were never shouted only ever whispered, and then only when tales of the dark times were told. Has Crispin been at the cider? 

“Draga Vymn! Draga Vymn!” The second shout was louder than the first. Dread crept into the pit of Nana's belly.

Margot and Fiona—daft maids as ever God created—ran to the window. “A d-d-dragon,” Fiona stammered, her arm extended, finger pointing.

Though her heart raced at twice its normal speed, Nana, ever practical, knew which battle she was called to fight. “Come away from the window,” she yelled. “A babe’s being born.” When the maids didn’t come, only leaned out farther, vying with each other to get a better look, Nana turned a haggard face toward the bed.

If I don’t turn the babe soon, I’ll lose both mother and child.

*

As the beast trudged up the long sea road to the castle, the gates slammed shut and the clanging bell echoed a warning for ten miles. The dragon—surely more than six hundred years old, mayhap even a thousand years old—reeking of ash and sulfur, barely able to walk, couldn't fly. Its huge wings scraped deep furrows into the ground with each pitiful, lumbering step. Gaunt, more bone than flesh, its skin hung on its frame like a coat on a hook. Scales littered the road behind it.

Two hundred years ago, when dragons numbered in the thousands, darkening the skies, raining fire and terror, everyone would have fled, but none of the castle folk had ever seen a dragon. They were the stuff of myth and legend. As the beast approached, guards crowded onto the castle walls and servants peered from every window.

Exhausted, the dragon collapsed not a hundred yards from the castle gate. "Bring out the seer!" it roared.

Lord Togair shouted back, “There is no seer here.”

Swinging its great head from side to side, as if drunk, or dimwitted from hunger, it sniffed the air. “I...SMELL...MAGIC.” The beast rumbled out its words, its voice so deep so loud, the vibration rattled doors on their hinges and shook the wooden shutters of the castle, "Bring me my supper!"

Lord Togair, his voice for once full of candor and honesty, replied, "I speak truth. There are no magical people here." In all his thirty-five years, he’d never seen a dragon. Nor his father before him. Magic? There isn’t any magic. Even mages are scarce and the drops and dribbles of magic they collect from chameleons barely enough to aid a theft.

“You defy me!” The dragon growled. Lying on its side, some five hundred feet long, it spit fire, setting the castle gate ablaze.

As Fiona and Margot screamed, and shouts filled the courtyard, Nana closed her eyes, focusing on the shapes and bulges beneath her skilled fingers, finally locating the babe’s head and bottom.

Leaning close she said, “Once more, child.”

“No, please. It hurts. It hurts.”

Nana’s voice was gentleness itself. “I swear to ya, this is the only way. Trust me, child. I’ve turned many a babe. Let’s try again.”

Nana pressed on Lady Togair’s belly in a twisting motion. If there be a God. Please, help me.

Mercifully the child moved. Nana whispered with excitement, “The babe is comin’ round.” The old woman pressed harder. “Now, my lady, push with everything in ya!”

With a deep, guttural moan, Lady Togair bore down. The force brought the child fully into position. “Again, once more. I promise you, one more push, and it will be over.”

Straining, the great lady pushed, the child slipped into Nana’s waiting hands, and the sweet scent of magic burst into the air like champagne fountaining from a bottle. Until that moment, only the merest hint of sweetness had escaped through the open door of the womb, now magic's tantalizing fragrance, only a dragon could smell, filled the room, the courtyard and drifted into the nostrils of the ravenous beast.

As if even the mere aroma of the child's magic was enough to strengthen the starving dragon, it raised its head and straightened its back. When it spoke its voice was that of a sovereign, endowed with the authority of one long accustomed to command. “Why do you protect the seer? Do you not know the ancient laws? All magical people are born with a dark destiny. They bring only misery to those they love. They are doomed, doomed to a bitter end. Bring out the seer and I will spare you. I ask of you only what I need to survive. In return, I will preserve your lives and give you prosperity.”

The beast’s logic, its thinking mind, was more terrifying to Togair than even its size or his burning castle gate. Clenching his fists, to still his shaking hands, Togair interrogated the faces of the men standing with him on the wall. He raised his eyebrows as if asking a question. Then he asked it. “Is there a magical person here?”

“No, my lord,” replied the captain of the guard.

The lead archer shook his head. “Nay, not amongst us.”

“My lord,” said another, “nary a single magical person has been born for a hundred years.”

Togair pointed to the dragon, “Yet, the beast claims it smells magic.” Togair’s voice rang out across the courtyard. “Remember the old stories. Those that hid magical people were always destroyed. If we don’t give the beast its food, it will burn down this castle. It will keep killing until it finds the magical person it seeks. I ask you, all of you, tell me, where is this magical person?”

Inside the birthing room, Lady Togair also asked a question. “Is it a boy? Have I given my lord a son?” She was equally disappointed.

“No, my lady.” Nana smiled down at the child in her arms. “You are daughtered.”

As Lady Togair turned away, crumpling back down onto the pillow and weeping, Nana cradled the child, watching in fascination as sixteen star-shaped birthmarks on the child’s right forearm twinkled each a different color and each ever changing color. They winked and shimmered, glittering copper and shining pumpkin orange. They sparkled forest green, berry blue, butter and chartreuse. They glimmered dancing slipper pink, pear and periwinkle purple, azure, orchid and boysenberry, winter gray, grape, sage and slate.

From the birthmarks floated up flashes of color, miniature stars, which touched Nana's nose, her cheeks, her mouth, bringing her joy in all its many shades: the comforting joy of a friend's greeting on a cold and dangerous night, the gleeful joy of a child tossed into the air, and the longing-filled joy of running into a lover's embrace.

Warmth spread through Nana's body. The child's beryl blue eyes, the color of a storm at sea, stared up at her. More awake at birth than any child Nana had ever seen, the babe wiggled her arms and legs. Nana’s nose touching her nose, set off more wiggling. How many children had she helped to birth? How many had she held? And none had touched her as this child did, none made her ache for more years to see the child grow, to see her run along the shore, to see her happy. In that moment, there was only Nana and the child. The world, its accursed dragons, and its self-serving greedy men faded away. Hope filled her old, tired heart.

Beyond the burning castle gate, the beast spoke again, almost pleasantly. “Save your lives. Give me my food. Bring out the seer.”

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Lord Togair raised his hands in the air, pleading with the beast. “I can't give you what we don't have!”

Hot fear trembled through Nana as she turned to look at the window where Margot and Fiona stood transfixed by the spectacle.

The babe is magic!

Nana gathered the child tightly to her chest.

Oh, poor babe. And you born to such a father. He is the worst sort. To save his own skin—nay, it wouldn't take that—just to give himself a grand name, or more gold in the treasure room, he'd let that dragon have you. He'd take you out himself and lay you on the dragon's tongue.

Cradling the child, she crossed to the basin where she quickly poured water over the babe and swaddled her in a cotton blanket, hiding her dazzling forearm. As Nana laid the child in the waiting bassinet, the old words echoed in her mind.

Doomed, doomed to a bitter end.

“There’s no hope for you,” she whispered. “No one can kill a dragon.” She cast another worried glance toward the window. “How long can I hide you? Mayhap your father will order the castle folk to walk one by one in front of the beast so it can have a sniff.”

As if to confirm Nana’s terrible fears the dragon’s patience ended abruptly. “I command you!” it thundered. “Bring out the seer!”

“But we don’t have any magical people.” Togair exclaimed.

A low rumbling sound came from the dragon’s throat. It pushed itself up on its front claws and cocked it horned head backward.

At the window, Fiona’s voice quaked. “What’s it doing?”

“Wait,” Togair held out his arms in front of him. “Mayhap we can—"

“If I die, you die.”

With a roar that shook the foundations of the castle, the dragon unleashed a stream of fire, the blast so hot shields melted in the hands of the soldiers; men caught fire. Fiona and Margot ran screaming from the window and banged out the door. Lord Togair, having guessed the dragon’s intent, turned to leap off the wall, but the blast caught him mid-air as he jumped, setting his back ablaze. He was saved by Duncan, the stable boy, who grabbing a bucket and dipping it in the watering trough, quickly doused the flames.

From the mouth of the dragon came a sound like a thousand screeching monkeys, threatening to deafen everyone still alive. Nana covered her ears; the babe cried. On and on the terrible sound echoed, the vibration rattling the water pitcher off the edge of the table. Indeed, it so shook the castle that Nana fell to her knees.

BAM! The great beast’s head hit the ground.

In the silence that followed, Nana struggled to her feet and staggered to the window. Like tales of hell, every flammable object was burning: the castle shutters, the doors, the barn, the men. And beyond the walls lay the beast, dead, its eyes and mouth closed.

“Nana, Nana, what was that screech? Why is it so hot?”

Her mind leaping, The child is saved, and no one the wiser, Nana cast a quick glance at the babe, then bustled to her mistress, "And why pray tell are you worrying your pretty head about a screech? Come, come, let's put a fresh gown on you. This one’s all sweaty." Slipping off the linen birthing gown, Nana threw it and the blood-soaked towels on the floor. Quickly she slid a fresh gown over her mistress's head. Placing a new towel down, she snuggled Lady Togair back into the bed, tucking the covers around her as if she was the newly born child.

In the bassinet, the babe’s crying had stopped, but she fussed. Lady Togair, her voice weaker than a kitten's meow, asked, "Nana, how does she fair?"

Crossing to the bassinet, Nana quickly unwrapped the swaddling blanket and sighed with relief. The twinkling had stopped. The birthmarks were nothing more than sixteen wheat-colored, star-shaped freckles. Wrapping her back up, Nana soothed the babe and brought her to the bed bending down so Lady Togair could see her.

"She's beautiful." The great lady relaxed into the softness of the down mattress.

"Aye, of course she is. She looks like her mother.”

“Nana?” Lady Togair could barely keep her eyes open.

“Yes, love?”

“Is there a dragon?”

Nana tucked the covers around her. “Aye, but,” she waved her hand toward the window in a quite dismissive manner, “leave the dragons to the men.” She added under her breath, “They deserve each other.”

“But—”

“Shhh.” Bending down, Nana kissed the great lady’s forehead. “Truth be told, the dragon is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Aye. Now to sleep with you. You’ve earned your rest.”

“But why, why did it come?”

“Oh, who knows why a dragon does anything. The important thing is, that’s the last dragon anyone around here will ever see. Why surely, they are all dead now.”

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