Mistress of Dragons (3 page)

Absorbed
in their prayers, they did not speak to Melisande, nor did she speak to them.
She continued on her way, hastening back to the Chamber of the Eye. As she
passed out the wicket gate, she saw Bellona, walking the battlements,
inspecting every warrior, making certain that all were ready. Glancing down,
Bellona caught sight of Melisande and the two shared a smile and a loving
glance, then each went back to her duties.

Walking
the path in the sunlight, Melisande looked back at that little girl, who had
summoned the magic in the darkness. She looked back at the little girl and her
self-doubt vanished. She sent her blessing to that far distant child, and went
with confidence to face the dragon.

MELISANDE
KNELT DOWN AGAIN BESIDE THE BOWL that was the Watchful Eye. She paused a moment
before she looked into the water to try to calm herself and focus her
thoughts—a difficult task. Her thoughts refused to stay in this quiet, sacred
place, but ran away back up the mountain, to Bellona, to the Mistress, to the
sisters, wondering how they were faring, wondering if there was anything she
should have done that she had left undone, wondering if the little girls were
safe . . .

“Stop
it!” Melisande commanded herself sternly. “The Mistress is with us. She has
matters well in hand. My duty is to watch the dragon.”

She
put her hands on the rim of the enormous stone bowl and bent over it, looking
into the still water.

Two
eyes looked back. Living eyes.

The
dragon’s head filled the bowl; his red eyes with their pupils, narrow slits
like murder holes, staring unblinking into hers. The sight was unnerving and
Melisande jerked away, unwilling
to
let those terrible eyes see into
hers.

And
remember, as you can see the dragon, so he can use his magic to see you. Do not
let him intimidate you.

The
Mistress’s final command came back to Melisande. She must defy the dragon, show
him she was not afraid . . . yet she hesitated. She could see again the
intelligence and the guile in the dragon’s eyes, as they had looked up at her
from the calm water. If he penetrated her mental barriers, he would be able to
see clearly the doubts and fears that crouched there in the darkness.

“Let
him,” she thought. “I am not afraid. I am High Priestess and he is but a
monster.” She looked back into the water, looked directly into the dragon’s
eyes.

“I
am the High Priestess of the Temple of the Watchful Eye,” she said to him, her
courage growing. “I give you fair warning, Dragon. Do not trouble us and we
will not trouble you.”

“We?”
the dragon asked. “Who is this ‘we’ who threatens me? I see only one and a puny
one at that. Summon your Mistress. I will speak with no one but her.”

The
dragon did not speak aloud, or at least his mouth did not move. His words were
brightly colored visions in Melisande’s mind, so that she saw his meaning more
than heard it. The sight was unnerving, for the colors were too bright,
jarring, and vivid, with sharp points that jabbed at her painfully. She
flinched and longed to turn away, but she held steadfast to her duty, held the
dragon’s gaze.

“My
Mistress does not deign to speak to the likes of you. We are the Sisters of the
Dragon and we await your coming with powerful magicks. Be warned and turn back.”

The
dragon’s eyes glinted. “Do what you must. I
will
speak to your Mistress.
I come for that purpose and that purpose alone.”

The
dragon’s eyes shifted away from her; the colors smeared and ran and •washed
away, leaving her gray and exhausted. The dragon had no more use for her. She
was a human, a lower form of life. Melisande searched behind the lone dragon
for others of his kind, but saw none and she began to understand. This was no
well-thought-out, planned assault by a troop of dragons. This was an attack by
a single dragon—a young male—out to test himself.

Melisande
was angered. This dragon was here for self-aggrandizement, attacking them to
make himself look good in the eyes of his superiors or perhaps gain the
approval of some female of his species. His demand to speak to the Mistress was
a ruse, a trap.

Melisande
sat back on her heels, stared into the Eye, concentrating on the dragon, for
the Mistress would want to know as much as Melisande could tell.

Part
of the training of the Sisterhood was devoted to studying dragons. “Know your
enemy,” was the dictum of the Mistress and she had taught them all she knew,
including what she had leaned from the Mistress before her, and so on back to
the very first Mistress of Dragons.

Like
humans, dragons vary in shape and size, in height and weight, in coloration of
their scales and their manes and eyes, in temperament and personality. Bellona
had dusky skin, black hair, and brown eyes, whereas Melisande was blonde and
pale with eyes the color of the lapis lazuli in the bowl. The current Mistress
was dark-skinned, like Bellona, but the one before her had been as fair as
Melisande. The same was true of dragons.

Within
the classrooms were stone jars filled with the scales of the dragons who had
sought to invade the kingdom. That same little girl who had whispered the magic
had been fascinated by the scales. While the other girls were playing,
Melisande had often gone to the classrooms to watch the dragon scales glitter
and sparkle in the sunlight.

The
scales in one jar were blue-black, like the juice of blueberries. Another jar
held scales that shimmered green-yellow as new leaves in springtime, and yet
another jar held scales that were red as blood or flame, and still another
amethyst. She had found it hard then to equate creatures of such beauty and
magnificence with evil, but she had only to look at the paintings on the walls
of the Mistress’s chamber to see represented in vivid detail the destruction
that dragons wrought on humans.

“The
scales of young dragons,” said the Mistress, “are brighter in hue than the
scales of elder dragons, for a dragon’s color deepens over time. This is one
way to tell a dragon’s age. The scales of very elder dragons may have darkened
to the point where they appear almost black, no matter what color they were
born with.”

The
scales of this dragon were a bright, iridescent green. His eyes were red, as
are the eyes of all dragons, but the eyes of this dragon had an orange glint to
them that bespoke youth, rash courage, reckless bravado. The spiky mane was a
deeper shade of green, darkening to turquoise. Melisande could not see the
wings now, for the beast’s head filled the bowl, but she remembered them as
being a light green, leathery, like a bat’s. The beast had four legs—the front
two smaller, used in a manner similar to a human’s arms; the back two large and
muscular, used to propel the dragon’s massive body into the air. The tail was
long, as long as the body, stabilizing the dragon on land and acting as a rudder
during flight. The spiky mane ran the length of the tail.

The
dragon’s head was sleek and graceful and reptilian. The shining scales formed a
V-pattern with the darker colors of the mane slanting down between the eyes,
giving way gradually to brighter green scales that covered the snout and the
powerful jaws. Four of the dragon’s fangs protruded from the mouth— two upper
and two lower; the rest of the sharp teeth were hidden.

Melisande
rose to her feet. She no longer saw the dragon’s beauty. She saw only the beast’s
careless cruelty, which could sport with human life. She had no doubt that the
dragon was coming to attack Seth, the only kingdom in Dragonvarld that dared
stand up to the dragons who terrorized and dominated the rest of the world.
Hidden in their valley, the people of Seth cut themselves off from the rest of
the world, barring admittance to their realm.

“For
if the rest of the people of Dragonvarld knew about the peace and the
prosperity of Seth, they would flock here by the thousands and we would lose
all that we have fought so long to gain,” the Mistress warned.

Her
anger burning away her fear, Melisande left the Eye. She knew all she needed to
know. The dragon was coming to do battle. She was calm enough to remember to
retrieve her shoes and she ran back to the monastery, eager as a young warrior
for her first battle.

The
women on the wall cried out to her as she came within sight, demanding to know
if the dragon was coming. Furious at such a breach of discipline, Bellona
shouted them to silence. Melisande entered the wicket gate, ran across the
courtyard. Two soldiers stood beside the great iron gong.

“Sound
the alarm,” said Melisande, and as the first booming notes rang out over the
valley, the warrior women cheered and clashed their spears on their shields.

Melisande
flashed a quick glance at Bellona, pacing up and down the wall, exhorting her
warriors to fight bravely, die gloriously, and add more scales to the stone
jars.

As
Bellona’s words “die gloriously” rang out, Melisande faltered. She felt a pang
of fear—not for herself, but for Bellona. Melisande had never before imagined
losing her beloved and she now knew that possibility was very real, for if the
magic failed and the dragon succeeded in his attack, Bellona would be in the
front of the fray, the first to attack, the first to fall.

“Blessed
Mistress, do not let it come to that,” Melisande prayed.

Her
resolve hardening, she hastened to the Sanctuary.

The
bronze doors to the north wing stood open and unguarded. The Mistress had
ordered the warriors to the walls to aid in the defense of the monastery. The
sisters would be inside the Sanctuary now, preparing their powerful magicks to
fight the dragon.

Never
mind decorum. Melisande ran through the dark corridor. The door that led to the
Sanctuary of the Eye stood near the Mistress’s chambers, so that she might have
easy access at any time. Usually the door was closed and locked. The Mistress
was the only person in possession of the key. This day, the door was open.
Firelight streamed out into the corridor, shining bright on the evil faces of
the dragons in the murals.

Entering
the door, Melisande descended a long flight of stone stairs and ran the length
of another corridor that delved deep into the mountain. Carved out of the
mountain’s bones, the corridor’s walls were rough and irregular, the air chill.
The smell of the earth mingled with the fragrance of incense and perfume
wafting down the corridor from the Sanctuary that lay ahead.

A
cavernous chamber, crudely built, the Sanctuary looked as if it had been dug
out of the rock by a single swiping scoop performed by a gigantic hand. The
chamber was oval in shape, its walls and domed ceiling formed of jagged,
broken, and crumbling rock. The stone floor was smooth, worn by the feet of the
countless numbers of sisters.

At
the north end of the chamber stood an altar made of white marble. So large was
the altar that a man could have rested his body full-length upon the altar and
still found room to stretch. The altar was known as the First Miracle, for it
was so wide that it could not have fit through the door and so heavy that a
hundred men could not have lifted it. Yet, here it stood. According to the
teachings, the earth itself had given the altar to the First Mistress as a
gift.

The
marble altar was wonderfully carved in relief, portraying images of dragons.
The altar was obviously old, for the white marble was starting to yellow with
age. Dust had crept into cracks and crevices so that each carved scale of every
dragon was clearly outlined in black.

The
top of the altar was smooth. An iron brazier, formed in the shape of two
nurturing hands, stood beside the altar. One of the most important duties of
the Sisterhood was to keep the sacred flame burning, for, the first Mistress
had prophesied, if the sacred flame was ever doused, the dragons would win and
Seth would fall. The fire’s fuel was peat, dug from the bogs down in the
valley, formed into bricks and hauled up the mountain by peat men, the only
males ever permitted to come close to the monastery (with the exception of the
men chosen monthly for breeding). The men brought the peat to within five miles
of the Sanctuary. The warrior women hauled it from that point the rest of the
way.

The
sisters themselves carried the peat down the stairs to a small cavern off the
main Sanctuary, where the bricks were blessed and sanctified by the Mistress.
Incense and perfume were added to the peat to further purify the fire. A shaft
in the ceiling carried the sacred smoke out the top of the mountain. On a
cloudless day, the people in the city of Seth could look up into the mountains
and see the thin curl of smoke rising from the brazier and take comfort in the
knowledge that the Mistress was watching over them.

Each
sister knelt on a small wool rug decorated with the symbols of the Watchful
Eye, the Nurturing Hand, and the Hand Defending. In one hand was the spear, in
another the thunderbolt, symbolizing the two means of combating the dragons—the
spear of the warrior and the thunderbolt of the Sisterhood’s magic.

Melisande
entered to find the sisters at their stations, kneeling, forming a circle
around a large Eye that had been carved into the granite floor. The Eye was the
Second Miracle, for it was said to have appeared the day the Mistress knelt
before the altar and proclaimed that here she would fight the dragons. The
sisters arranged their rugs so that each faced inward, toward the Eye. Their
heads were bowed in prayer, their voices murmuring. All were here. All except
the Mistress. Melisande wondered uneasily if the strain had proved too much for
the elderly woman, if perhaps she had fallen ill. She was about to go search,
when several of the sisters caught sight of her and bowed low to their High
Priestess.

Melisande
could not leave now. Her sudden departure would cause consternation among the
sisters, disrupt their concentration. The Mistress was a proud woman. She would
not thank Melisande for coming to fetch her, as if she had forgotten or
neglected her duty. If the Mistress was detained, she must have her reasons.