Ky-Lin could have told her . . .
As soon as the Travellers had left, the dragons flew, one by one, across the chasm to where the Eg, their Eg, their long-lost treasure, lay in the niche in the ground long reserved as the official Hatching-Ground. They flew in order of precedence; first the senior Master-Dragon, the Brown, followed by the Orange, the Green, the Grey, the Purple, the Yellow and finally the Blue, his mere twelve hundred years making him the most junior.
One by one they approached the Eg reverently, muttering a suitable welcome, until all seven were grouped round in a circle, admiring, longing to touch, to examine more closely, to guess the weight, estimate the date of hatching. It was for the senior dragon to make the first move, followed by the others in order of seniority. Although it was not encouraged, there were inevitable side-bets; these were safer than quarrels, and they only used trinkets as stakes: a silver platter or two, a small string of pearls, an amethyst brooch—the sort of wagers they laid in their endless games of chess, checkers, Mah-Jong etc.
The dragons' colours glowed with excitement. Although naturally of a neutral colour, the lozenges of scales on their chests reflected their "true" colours, which only dyed their skins when they were excited, as now, or were injured or ill, when the colours seeped into the neutral patches and dyed the whole dragon with a paler shade of the original. This had happened hundreds of years ago to the Blue, at a bad time when he had temporarily mislaid the jewels that would make him a Master-Dragon.
The dragons were more or less agreed. The hatching would take place around Middle-Year, and the weight was about fifteen pounds at present, of which three pounds were the shell. It would be a large baby dragon.
In the meantime there was plenty to do to prepare for the new arrival.
Firstly the Eg must be kept warm and comfortable and turned regularly. One after the other the dragons provided comforts. Yellow filched a padded quilt from the bush where it had been drying, though when he had tried to accelerate the drying process with a puff or two of dragon-fire it was not quite as it should have been, although the scorched bits didn't show once the quilt was folded. Blue concentrated on a layer of dried grasses for the floor of the Nursery, Green fashioned a beautiful teething-ring from bone and coral, Purple picked out the finest jewels for the baby's first toys and Orange wove a basket to hold them, while Grey fashioned wind-chimes from the smallest bones in their collection.
As senior dragon, Brown was in charge of the arrangements and supervised the rota for the weekly turning of the Eg and the continual Hatch-Sitting.
Winter passed, spring brought new life to the crops and countryside and the dragons did their annual Turd-Out, as they called it among themselves, although Brown frowned on this and preferred it to be referred to in his hearing as Spring-Clean. This year it was more important than ever that the whole cave was as pristine as possible, pending their New Arrival, so they all set to with a will, using their wings to sweep all the debris down into the accomodating chasm, so that detritus, dried faeces and general rubbish went up conveniently in a puff or two of greasy smoke and a couple of sparks. Their Hoard was sorted, examined, cleaned, stones polished and arranged to their best advantage; the silver and gold on stone shelves at the back, the jewels each in their own piles of colour: rubies, garnets, beryl, bloodstones, rose-quartz, carnelian and fire-opals; topazes, agate, amber and tiger's eye; emeralds, peridot and jade; sapphire, aquamarine and amethyst; diamond and crystal; pearl and moonstone and opals, and all set off nicely with bands of jet.
Now all was ready, and only three months to go . . .
Unseen and unregarded, the Travellers who had returned the Eg started their long journey home, and at the monastery Ky-Lin welcomed the spring sunshine and spent much of his time snoozing on the parapet of the balcony where stood the stone replica of his friend Growch. Some time soon his Master would arrive and take him to his rest, although He had so much to do it might be later rather than sooner. After all, he, Ky-Lin, was one of his Master's most unimportant servants, and must wait his turn.
Truth to tell he had rather enjoyed his extended time on earth. Without becoming too puffed up with pride, he had at least helped both Summerdai and Sophronisbe to attain their goals. He, too, wondered what had become of the Eg. He couldn't miss the fact that there was more than usual activity among the dragons, some of them flying by day, which was most unusual.
He wondered, too, how far his friends had travelled homewards, and whether that rogue of a Beau-Cat had managed to persuade Sophy that he needed a final kiss to transform him, when he knew perfectly well that the spell only lasted a year anyway. . . .
It had been a long journey for all of them, as had the earlier one with Summer: he hoped this one would have a happier ending. He had thought the Eg would have hatched earlier than this; there was certainly life in there, even after all the vicissitudes it had been through; both he and the boy had heard the somewhat puzzling sounds from within. Still, he felt that everyone would be left in no doubt once it had hatched.
Not that he knew much about dragons. They were creatures of another, earlier time, some of the survivors of the Great Darkness he had been told about, when the Black Star fell on earth and shut out the sun for aeons. He and his brethren were of a later time, direct creations of their Master, devoted to the preservation of life in all its forms, unlike the careless, fire-setting, meat-eating dragons—although their reputation as man-eaters was erroneous. Perhaps this one would grow up differently, although if Growch had been there he would have said: "No chance, mate. Once a dragon, always a dragon . . ."
March had gone, April and May came and went, and now the days had lengthened until it was no sooner time to go to bed than time to get up again, or so it seemed to the peasants toiling on their land, although in the monastery the monks enjoyed the indulgence of the sun on their shaven skulls as they moved from one duty to another.
Up in the Blue Mountain the dragons jostled one another for the privilege of Eg-Sitting now the time was drawing near for the hatching, sometimes only giving their predecessor five minutes before shoving him aside and taking over. The Eg grew warmer and larger, and now it weighed over eighteen pounds. What a baby it would produce!
As Middle-Year appeared to accelerate towards them, all the dragons vied with one another to provide their baby with the very best. Orange scorched his tail down in the chasm while smoking the tenderest pieces of meat for the baby dragon's first meals; Grey almost choked on the fluff he collected from plants for bedding; Yellow was badly scratched searching for shards of glass to reflect the moonlight; Green was nearly exhausted when he arrived back from the south with a length of the finest silk for covering while the baby's scales hardened; Purple blunted his claws tearing out suitable white stones from the moraine to fence in the Hatching-Ground and Blue took one of the silver spoons and filled several golden bowls with the finest spring water for drinking and washing. Of course dragons used to roll in dew or snow for their twice-yearly bath, but the baby would be too young for a while even to be flown out for this.
Nobody cared for bumps and bruises. Their baby dragon hatching safe and healthy was all that mattered. The years since the last hatching were legion, and the surviving dragons were not growing any younger. There must be other dragon eggs scattered throughout the world but these were in forgotten places and might never have the right conditions to hatch, but this one was here, it was real, it was live and it was about to hatch.
The sun rose higher in the sky, the air grew warmer, and at last it was the eve of Middle-Year-Day. There was an overnight full-moon which bathed the Hatching-Ground and the waiting dragons in silver light. It seemed that the moon was reluctant to miss the hatching, for it was still a pale disc in the sky when the sun rose in the east, and now all the dragons were gathered in a circle around the Eg, most of the side-bets having been paid out already.
One hour before mid-day the tapping began.
At first it was so faint that the dragons had to hold their breath in unison to hear it at all, but then the noise gradually grew in volume and faster and faster, until it was perfectly audible. Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap.
But the shell of the Eg resisted. The tapping grew more frantic, punctuated by what sounded like tiny thumps, as if a small fist was joining in with the disposable egg-beak attached to the jaw of the baby dragon. The noise crescendoed, and then gradually died back as though the creature within was exhausted, was losing both strength and heart. The dragons glanced anxiously at each other, then turned to the Senior Dragon, Brown.
He thought for a long moment; all sounds had ceased. Then he nodded slowly. "Show claws . . ."
One by one the dragons raised first their left then their right front claws, which were carefully examined by Brown. All the dragons were supposed to keep their claws sharp on the specially imported granite Sharpening Stone, but some of the older ones skipped the chore, so consequently it was the youngest, Blue, who was chosen to help their baby out of his prison of shell.
Brown indicated where he wanted the cut made. "But not too deep; just halfway through. Be very, very careful . . ."
All held their breath as Blue extended the middle claw of his right front foot and held it poised over the Eg. They noticed he was trembling. He took a deep breath, then as delicately but decisively as a glass-cutter etching the thinnest balloon glass, he traced a fine line two-thirds around the breadth of the Eg.
For a moment there was no response, and then the tapping started again, louder this time, the accompanying thumping as well, and now through the crack in the shell a thin mewling sound. Like a miracle the crack widened fractionally until there was a minute glimpse of movement. By now all the dragons' heads were circled above the Eg, a living dome of bony heads and hissing breath.
Noon, and the sun at its zenith on this Middle-Year-Day. A shaft of light suddenly burned down on the dragons' skulls and they all drew back as if scorched. They believed that the sun's rays were harmful, would burn through their skulls and scramble their brains. Now the rays of the sun shone on the cracked Eg and the noise and activity within increased a hundred per cent. The membrane which divided the outer shell from its contents stretched and stretched, thinner and thinner as the crack in the Eg widened until suddenly with a ripping pop! it burst apart, the Eg-shell opened into two distinct halves like a two-petalled flower, and its contents were revealed . . .
Ky-Lin heard the roar from where he lay in the mid-morning shadows among the bonsai trees on his little balcony. He sprang upright, thinking for a moment that the fires in the Blue Mountain had erupted again, but recognised immediately that the noise came from the harsh, cacaphonous voices of the dragons. Whatever it was, they were clearly upset.
Gradually the noise subsided, rising once more into a brief crescendo every quarter-hour or so, but this merely increased Ky-Lin's sense of unease. He could not imagine what could have occasioned such an uproar, audible so clearly across the miles that separated the monastery from the mountain. Had something happened to the Eg? If it had hatched normally he would have expected something other than this howl of both anger and bewilderment. Was there something wrong with the baby dragon? Could it be malformed? Sick? Dead? And if it were any of those things, wouldn't the dragons blame both him and the Travellers for not taking enough care with it? If so, what could they do? Would they take to the air and pursue Sophy and Company and wreak a terrible vengeance? Or would they seek him out and pulverize him, raze the monastery to the ground?
No, he couldn't let that happen. He must journey towards the mountain and meet them half-way, try to undo whatever damage had been done before it was too late. Accordingly he did a quick transformation into pony-size and made his way through the monastery, down the track to the village and turned north onto the plain. He trotted along in the afternoon heat, carefully avoiding damaging any living growth, his hooves throwing up little puffs of dust.
He made good progress, and as he neared the Blue Mountain the dragon voices grew louder and more discordant. He wished he could understand just what they were shouting about—
He skidded to a sudden halt, realising all at once what an utter idiot he was. Because of the unspoken ban against any congress between his people and them, they had always ignored that the other creatures existed, and of course there was no way he could communicate with them if they came face to face. They were such primitive creatures that thought transference was out, too.
He sank down on his haunches, in his misery shrinking down a size or two. He could not remember ever feeling so miserable, even when . . . But no point in remembering that. He and his brethren were not supposed to feel sadness—nor anger, hatred, love, pride or impatience. Perhaps he had been in the world too long, for he knew he had felt all these emotions at one time or another, most of them only momentarily. His downfall had originally been his pride, and luckily he didn't really know how to be impatient; but he had felt affection for Summer and Sophy, and for the boy Toby, but probably the greatest had been for Growch.
There was only one thing to do. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, gazed inwards and sent a prayer to his Master—not a request for direct aid, that would be wrong, rather a prayer for guidance on what to do next. One had to rely on oneself for action.
He was deep in meditation, sinking into that limbo where the body no longer mattered or responded to outside influences, when he was jerked back into the real world by a sudden clatter of leathery wings above. Claws seized his shoulders and he was borne upwards into the air with a whoosh! and a sinking lurch in his stomach. All his senses returned with a rush as he saw the plain beneath him disappear with alarming speed. Whatever in the world was happening?
He realised that he had been pounced on by one of the dragons and was being carried higher and higher towards the north-east, but to what purpose? Was he to be dropped from a great height, to be smashed to smithereens? Made into a snack for the dragons' dinner? But perhaps they had something less violent in mind: to show him something perhaps? To demonstrate why they were so angry?
Whatever the eventual outcome they had obviously seen him coming and decided to collect him, although it was unusual for them to fly in the heat of the sun, so it must be urgent. Lifting his head a little he saw they were approaching the Blue Mountain, swinging back behind it to the shady side, but when it seemed they must literally brush the rocks his carrier-dragon shot straight upwards, making Ky-Lin dizzily wish he had not indulged in those few extra grains of rice that morning. They must be all of three thousand feet high . . .
The next moment they started to drop like stones, plummeting down so fast that Ky-Lin was thrust back momentarily against the dragon's bony chest. Beneath them the black maw of the mountain rose up with frightening speed: a dark blot, an inky puddle, an ebony lake—the mouth of Hell itself!
The dragon braked sharply at the last moment, then did a neat landing in the middle of a circle of six scaly others, dropping Ky-Lin unceremoniously to the ground. All around was the stench of cinders, old bones, stale air, sulphur. Ky-Lin choked and gagged and his eyes started to run. Something shoved him in the back, propelling him forward; blinking he tried to clear his streaming eyes, conscious of the dragon-voices grumbling and growling all around him.
His eyes clearing, becoming used to the dragon-stench, he peered ahead of him. He was in a small enclosed space surrounded by a fence of stones and—yes—there was the Eg, or rather one of the neatly bisected halves. Moving nearer without hindrance, he peered down and there, cradled in the egg, its tiny claws clutching a strip of smoked meat which it was attempting to chew with its razor-sharp baby teeth and making contented little mewling sounds, was a baby dragon.
Its blue eyes gazed up at him curiously. Blue eyes? Did they change as the dragons grew, like puppies, kittens or human babies? He peered closer. It seemed healthy enough: four legs, claws present and correct, two vestigial wings, tail, nose, eyes and ears all looking in the right places. Just for a moment it bore a fleeting resemblance to a little piglet, especially as its tail was tightly curled.
And it was pink . . .
Presumably all dragons started that colour, together with the blue eyes, and they lost that ridiculous tuft of blond hair like chicken-fluff that grew on top of its head as they matured.
He was saved from further guesswork—if the baby dragon was healthy and happy then what was all the fuss about—by a violent nudge, one which knocked him sideways out of the ring of stones and onto a bare patch of ground, on which lay the other half of the Eg.
Now all the dragons were hissing, instead of the crooning-growl they had made over the baby dragon, but suddenly a thin, angry wail cut across all other sounds, pitched as it was at a higher frequency; rapidly it grew into a horrendous, ear-piercing screech, a sound compounded of anger and despair, grating on the ear like a giant chalk on a giant blackboard. Ky-Lin moved over to the other half-egg and gazed down. And there . . . ? There was a baby.
A human baby!
The little girl, tufts of black hair sticking up all over her scalp, eyes screwed up in temper, toothless mouth agape for another wail, arms and legs pumping, was quite obviously not a dragon, although she was behaving like one. So, the Eg had held its surprises after all—twins! one dragon-baby, one human one.
No wonder the dragons were so upset. At last Ky-Lin had an inkling of why he was here. He realised that the dragons thought he was partly to blame for this mess: after all hadn't he helped first Summer and later Sophy to deliver a flawed Eg? Sure, they had their baby dragon, but here was a lively, lusty reminder of their renegade dragon, Black Jasper, who had broken all the rules and fathered an Eg with his human love.
Now he was left in no doubt as to his role. He glanced over to where the baby dragon lay—no eye contact with his captors, kidnappers, hostage-takers, hijackers, whatever they were: this only incensed them, apparently—and he saw the baby dragon lifted tenderly from his half of the Eg and cradled in blunted claws, while a padded quilt was ripped in half by another, sharper claw. Half was tossed across to land at his feet, a scorched, charred half, while the other, unmarked half was the dragon-baby's new cradle.
Another dragon tossed the half-shell with the baby girl onto the damaged quilt then brought the corners together into a rough knot, and moved back. Another pushed him forward again till he was standing over the bundle. So, he was expected to carry it away. He opened his mouth, took the knot into his mouth and tugged, but the cloth slipped away. He tried again, but once again his ruminant's teeth could not get a grip, and he that even if he grew to pony-size he would never be able to carry the bundle away. He stepped back and shook his head, was nudged forward again, attempted it again, but only succeeded in trying so hard that he merely let go too quickly and landed with an undignified bump on his rump. And if dragons could be said to snigger, they were sniggering now.
The baby had been quiet for the last few minutes, but now she started up with another piercing wail, rising to an indignant shriek. The dragons shrank back, and he realised that the noise actually hurt their ears, accustomed as they were to their own much deeper voices. There was hissed conversation above his head, then suddenly he was grasped once more by strong claws and borne aloft; out of the corner of his eye he saw that a second dragon had grabbed the baby-bundle and was bearing it aloft also.
Once more the vertigo, the churning stomach, the rush of wind over his hide, but now he was surprised to see it was already dusk and that there was much cooler air in the upper reaches, although the further they descended heat from from the baked earth beneath came puffing up like an open oven.
Ky-Lin looked down, expecting to find the plain rising up to meet them, but they appeared to be swinging further south-west. He saw the monastery looming up, and already he could see the twinkling lights of the cooking-fires and lanterns in the courtyard. What were the dragons doing? Almost immediately there was that sickening drop of hundreds of feet and then a lurch as his dragon pulled up just short of the balcony. So they knew just where they could usually find him . . .
A moment later he was dropped unceremoniously beside the bonsais, and the bundle followed, a little more gently, to lie in front of him. Above them the dragons hovered for a wing-beat or so, their drown-draught flattening the hair on his plumed tail and smelling of cinders, then they were up and away, their raucous cries fading away as they swept back towards the Blue Mountain.
The bundle beside him stirred. Awkwardly Ky-Lin worried the knot loose until the baby girl lay revealed, wriggling uncomfortably, her mouth squaring itself for another gappy yell. Soon someone would come to investigate, on the excuse of bringing him his supper or lamp, but before then he would have to seek help, make a plan.
Despairingly he nosed the lump of stone that represented his old friend, Growch, and let his thoughts wash out over the stone. "What shall I do next? I've never had to deal with a baby before. . . ."
He didn't expect an answer, but at once, in his mind, he heard a voice: a hint, a murmur that sounded so like Growch that he shook his head in disbelief.
"Come on, mate? Think . . . Babies is no different from pups. At this age they needs milk, warmth and a lick or two to keep 'em clean. Once they starts to grow, then they needs training, care, an' lots of love. Start 'er off right: after that it's up to you . . ." The phantom voice faded, died away.
Of course! A wet-nurse from the village to care for the babe until she was weaned. That took care of the next few months. But then? The voice that had seemed to be Growch's had said "after that it's up to you . . ." but there was always a choice, wasn't there? And if his Master came for him soon . . . But if he didn't?
He glanced down at the baby girl again. She had decided to calm down, but she was still frowning, sucking at one of her fists; then she stretched out her other hand towards him and for a moment her face smoothed out and she was still and there was a sudden fleeting resemblance to . . .
He sighed. Yes, there was always a choice—but then he had just made his.
Hadn't he?