The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  ‘Oh, I just give up!’

  She shivered with cold, staring out into the early morning estuary. It all seemed so real and yet nothing made the slightest sense. How was she ever going to understand what was going on?

  ‘Mmmm!’

  Kate ran her fingers through her hair, blinking still as if to make her reluctant mind accept that this was really happening. ‘My hair feels lovely – so perfumed and clean.’ Tears erupted into her eyes again.

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘Somehow – I don’t even pretend to understand what you did, or how – you took care of me while I was asleep.’

  ‘Kate Shaunessy – cries in sleep.’

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I was frightened – and so very tired.’

  ‘Girl-thing magic – Momu say.’

  ‘Who is this Momu?’

  The dragon pointed with a single claw at her brow. Then he swept his forepaw over the ground, the island, which was blooming with flowers, grasses and shrubs.

  ‘I did that?’

  She drew herself erect, all of her five and a half feet, and faced his triangular head which, since most of him trailed back close to the ground, was pretty much on the same level as her chest. His ears were small and trumpet-shaped, like a rhinoceros. And there was a distinct smell about him at close quarters, not unpleasant – like the hot smell of a turf fire. His skin was incredibly craggy, ridged and scaly from top to bottom, like some old conch shell. But those lovely kumquat eyes were truly huge in relation to his face, and his mouth – that same wide mouth he had used to comb her hair – formed a frighteningly broad grin between his relatively tiny ears, and when he opened it to pant with the long forked tongue, Kate saw two rows of razor-fine teeth. Indeed, she saw that a few auburn hairs were still trapped between those teeth. But his skin was much cleaner, faintly glowing, when compared to yesterday – if it had been truly yesterday, and not a week ago, she had fallen asleep. She guessed that he must have had a nocturnal bath in the river. Now she could see that his skin comprised a complex pattern of finely wrought scales, which had a blue-green, bronze-like sheen, a bit like the lustre of a dragonfly.

  The thought caused her to bark a laugh: dragonfly indeed!

  ‘Oh, forgive me, Driftwood – I’m only getting used to the fact that you really are a dragon. Even though you’re not at all what I would have expected of a dragon.’

  ‘Girl-thing knows of dragons?’

  ‘Well, for a start, you don’t really talk like I would have imagined a dragon should talk.’

  His chest heaved in a disgruntled sigh, sparks of silver and gold sheening over the scales. There seemed to be a weightiness about him as he moved, as if he was largely made out of metals. No wonder the ground shook when he did a somersault.

  ‘Girl-thing knows of dragons?’

  ‘Well … of course I don’t. But I should have expected … Oh, I don’t know what I should have expected.’

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘What about the silly things you say? A dragon should be talking about …’ The truth was, now that she thought about it, she had no idea what a dragon should be talking about. ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  As he turned his back on her, she saw that the same scales, only much broader and stronger, ran over the stumps of his two wings. And, now that he was annoyed with her, there were green and yellow feathers standing to attention about his neck, rather like the Elizabethan ruffs you saw in films.

  ‘Gosh – how would I know!’ Kate bit her lip. ‘Of course I don’t really have a clue what a dragon should talk about. I’m being an idiot.’

  ‘Food?’

  Her eyes lifted to the gorgeous, if chilly, expanse of blue sky overhead. ‘As a matter of fact, food seems good to me right now. I’m starving.’

  The dragon curled his emaciated body around her, his head turned towards her on his long neck from her left, and his even longer tail curling around her, protectively, possessively. ‘Dragon likes Kate Shaunessy – bad girl! Clonmel town!’

  ‘I like you too!’

  Suddenly her brow pulsed. It was so unexpected, so powerful, it overwhelmed her thoughts. Kate’s heartbeat rose into her throat. Her breath caught. Her hand lifted up, to brush against the hard cool crystal surface of the triangle.

  ‘Oh, heck – I still have a lot to learn.’

  Kate stared at the strange, emaciated creature. ‘You know that the Witch is chasing me. Out there, probably not very far away, the succubi and the Gargs – and wolves too – they’re all looking for me.’

  ‘Hmmmmm!’

  The dragon rose onto his squat hind legs until his head was more than twice as high as Kate’s. His voice fell, becoming very deep and resonant, and a cold hard glitter invaded his eyes. This was altogether more like what she would have expected of a dragon. He flattened his body in the grass and the flowers and wriggled his back from side to side. Then he reached out with his forepaw, the talon of which was pointing at Kate’s brow. ‘Momu say – magic!’

  ‘You’re looking at me like you want something.’ Kate reached out and brushed his brow, sensing a peculiar tingle from the contact. ‘What is it?’

  He wriggled his back again, rolled those magnificent eyes and, with a sweep of his talon, he indicated the island again, the fact it was blooming.

  ‘Make better!’

  Kate’s heart rose into her throat. ‘Oh, Driftwood – you want me to heal you? You’re asking me to give you back your wings?’

  Standing erect, so her arms were at much the same level as the wing stubs of the dragon now squatting before her, Kate really hadn’t the slightest idea of how to grow back a dragon’s wings. She thought of Alan, of the difficulties he had experienced in coming to terms with the Oraculum of the First Power. She remembered how bewildered he had been at first. But there was one experience in particular that came to mind. It was the bizarre idea of blood rage, as Kemtuk, the former Olhyiu shaman, had called it. The Olhyiu and the four friends had been trapped in an ice-bound lake under the threat of attack from the Storm Wolves. Siam, the Olhyiu chief, had called for his people to remember the courage and warrior spirit of their ancestors. Then, somehow, Alan had discovered a special ability that Siam retained from his distant history – a secret that had proved both extraordinary and frightening.

  The Olhyiu were descended from bears. When through the power of his oraculum, Alan had explored the subconscious mind of Siam, he had discovered the ghost of his bear ancestry. Alan had reawakened this spiritual inheritance, and this had allowed Siam to change into an enormous grizzly bear. The grizzly had fought the Storm Wolves, giving them time to escape.

  Later on Alan had talked about it, in amazement, with Kate. He had explained how he hadn’t fully understood what he was doing; he had simply allowed his own instinct, and belief in the oraculum, to do the right thing. Now, inspired by Alan’s example, Kate laid her hands on the two scarred stubs of wings that protruded from Driftwood’s back. She began by caressing them with her fingers, doing her best to imagine the hurt he must have felt when they were ruined. But she realised that the situation she faced was quite different from that of Alan and Siam. There was no ghost of an ancestor for her to reawaken. The dragon had always been a dragon. The inspiration she needed must lie deeper, lost in the aeons of time since dragons last flew across the skies.

  Kate was uncertain how to begin. Then she whispered softly into Driftwood’s trumpet-shaped ear: ‘I think I’ll have to explore your innermost feelings. I must enter your memories – maybe even the memories of your soul spirit, if soul spirits have memories. I’m worried that I’ll be hopeless and clumsy about it, because I’ve never done anything like this before. But I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.’

  The dragon turned his head to the side and a single great orange eye regarded her, unblinkingly.

  ‘I’ll take that as a reluctant yes!’

  Kate sighed, then brushed her fingertips once more over the mutilated stubs. She so deeply empathised with him,
she kissed them, one by one. ‘Poor Driftwood. I promise you, with all my heart, that I’ll respect your secrets.’

  The ridged and scaly head fell.

  ‘Kate Shaunessy, destroyer of shiny things – makes solemn promise. Driftwood also makes solemn promise. Will do his best not to think about eating Kate Shaunessy, red hair, green eyes. Bearing in mind great hunger of dragons.’

  ‘I suppose it’s as good a promise as I’m likely to get!’

  Slowly, patiently, Kate felt her mind open out into what appeared to be an enormous space of time … and longing … and most extraordinary of all, endurance. She felt the fall of summer rain on her face; she drifted through clouds and sunsets; she felt time begin to speed up, faster and faster, through the willowy visions of days and nights, and then years, and then centuries. She arrived back at a time when the world was young, and she could smell the blood of living things, the growing power of the soil, the sensation of oneness with the world about her as solid as stone.

  ‘Oh, my!’ she breathed. ‘It’s so beautiful. As if you think, not in words at all, but in touches, scents, tastes, emotions … and … Oh, I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s like looking out into a world too rich for my experience … as if every colour and shade was precious … as if every moment was too exquisite ever to allow it to pass …’

  Gooseflesh erupted over her body.

  ‘Oh, goodness – I’m flying!’

  It felt utterly different from what she had ever imagined it might actually feel to fly. She soared between enormous trees, with trunks as thick as houses and foliage that reached thousands of feet into the blue, sunlit sky. In the foliage of a single tree, which was the size of a field, were nests of young calling to be fed in voices unlike any voices she had heard – a heady, undeniable yearning, spirit to spirit, through the communication of minds. She revelled in the intimacy of such communication, then soared again, a feral blood running through her veins, as her body was spiralling into the sun – merely to glory in its warmth and being. She felt enormously alive, one with wind and earth and sky. She was enthralled by this expansion of being. She felt so full of joy, she longed for it never to end even while her heart couldn’t bear the wild glee of it, her wings and body curling and spiralling and then swooping through air that felt as thick as water because of her speed, flying far over the shimmering oceans where creatures she did not, could not possibly recognise, scurried or dived or took off into the air on tensed fins, merely at her shadow.

  And then she dived, shearing through the surface waters, then coursing deeper over coral reefs full of brilliantly coloured living things.

  ‘I’m a … a sea dragon!’

  She felt the enormous heart of the dragon contract within her own chest as she lofted into the air again; she felt the exhalation of fiery breath as she roared …

  ‘Oh, Driftwood!’

  Her heart sang with the exhilaration of soaring amongst mountains. But still there was more – breathtakingly more.

  Within the exquisite joy of communion she felt her being drift stranger still, through veils of perception, to a time before people, a time of the beginnings … A time, as it now appeared, that belonged to beings resembling angels. Ethereal spirits who existed in a perfect harmony of being, devoid of ordinary mortal needs.

  The Arinn!

  Driftwood, you’re allowing me to see them … You’re letting me sense their loveliness … their gift of innocence …

  Beings of magic, as she was now permitted to witness, who could not foresee the coming of evil brought into existence by their gift to the world. The arrival of creatures less perfect, corrupted by that same gift, seduced by their proximity to something approaching infinite power …

  Kate saw how it was the corruption of this very legacy of the Arinn that gave rise to change. The evolution of darkness was the tragic inevitability of imperfect beings. And from this darkness came the rise of the titans. Half gods, spoilt by power, yet coveting the power that was half of their birthright, and amoral to the extent they would think nothing of the destruction of an entire world.

  Kate didn’t relish this new vision. She averted her face and senses from this growing lust for absolute and unreasoning power. Yet she couldn’t escape this dreadful journey into the hearts and minds of beings as monstrous in evil as they were in stature. If the forces they lusted after belonged exclusively to the gods, the only beings powerful enough to oppose them, in physical strength and power of magic, were the dragons.

  War was inevitable.

  A terrible, pitiless war, that seemed to go on forever. The ruthlessness of the titans, their lack of empathy – no young to tend or care for, no love of life, or care for the life about them. Kate saw their glee in ripping apart mountains, or tearing open the river beds, or despoiling oceans – the furious, headlong urge to destroy, until there was little left to destroy any more. And most dreadful of all, King of the Titans, reared Fangorath, a colossus of pride and rage.

  She flinched from this glimpse of the monster whose skull had become the Tower of Bones. He so terrified her that she shrank back into her tiny normal self from the vision of his great horned head and the baleful furnaces that were his eyes.

  ‘Fangorath!’ There were sparks in the breath of the little dragon as he spat out the accursed name. ‘Fangorath – Dragonslayer!’

  ‘But what happened to Fangorath? How was he beaten?’

  ‘All dragons come together. All dragons – and all powerful allies. Together we fought Dragonslayer.’

  ‘Who were these allies?’

  Driftwood panted with excitement and fear. ‘Old Ones! Wisdom-that-was.’

  ‘The Arinn?’

  ‘Fight together. Old Ones and dragons. Fight greatest of battles – here! In Valley of Bones!’ The dragon performed a somersault and landed, shaking the ground. ‘But Dragonslayer too strong. Defeat us all. Defeat wisdom-that-was. Destroy, destroy – destroy! All is darkness. Destroyer of Worlds!’

  ‘Oh, Driftwood!’ With a shiver, Kate recalled the gigantic skeletons and armour she had seen around the Tower of Bones.

  ‘Fangorath cannot be beaten. Demi-god – immortal. But can be banished. Dragons beseech Dark One.’

  ‘Who was this Dark One?’

  Driftwood’s eyes became very large, so large that Kate could see herself in their shiny reflections. ‘Call down great goddess. Raven of battlefields. Make sacrifice! Great sacrifice – the joy of dragons.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  Kate had never seen Driftwood so restless or excited. He was pacing around, hopping from foot to foot and running around in circles, while growling to himself, his eyes shining like miniature suns.

  ‘All the dragons died except you, it seems,’ she said gently, not wishing to excite him more, yet tremulous with sympathy.

  ‘Died me too!’

  ‘But …?’

  Then she understood. The sacrifice of the dragons, the tribute to the Great Raven – to Mórígán – had been the loss of their wings. To end the carnage, to save what still remained of the war-ravaged world, the surviving dragons had bitten off their own wings. The dragons had abandoned the source of their joy, and she saw them, all the poor dragons, as they plunged from the skies into the depths of the oceans.

  Died me too …

  Kate felt her heart breaking with anguish for her little dragon. She made no attempt to stop the flood of her tears. For a long time she just brushed her fingertips over the stumps of wings, grieving over their broken remains, feeling such a sense of loss she couldn’t think at all. She hugged the small dragon, huddled into a ball with the horror of what he had allowed her to see. She clung to him, feeling the immense discharge of whatever the oraculum did to her, whatever power it gave to her, itself the gift of a goddess. She poured her grief and love into the ravaged stumps where the wings should have been, feeling the changes already beginning to take place in the scarred and deformed flesh. Withdrawing her hands she watched the proliferation of new growth,
swelling first like enormous mushrooms, then further expanding amid wrinkles and folds in which the throb of arteries could clearly be seen. She sensed the ongoing proliferation of nerves and bones and muscles, the growth of new life.

  Then, her emotion too overwhelming for words, she threw her arms around the long, scaly neck, squeezing his unresisting solidity.

  The great wings, which must have been twenty feet in their span, opened out on either side of the dragon’s back like fabulous sails, stretching taut and moving in slow fanning exercises, their surface covered in gossamer scales that flickered into colour in sweeping iridescent waves.

  ‘Ooooh!’

  With the sun behind him it was like looking up through the most beautiful cathedral window, her eyes dazzled by the kaleidoscope of gorgeous colours against the light. She could see a fine filigree of gold running everywhere, like marbling under the delicate scales, thrilling her all the more to realise that she was looking at the colour of his blood – that a dragon’s blood was not red like her own, but golden.

  The dragon roared.

  Kate clapped her hands. ‘Ah, sure – you’re magnificent!’

  She tottered amid the powerful currents of air that blew back from the enormous beating wings. Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand, she made her way back up the slope, searching for where she had slept that first night … probing the rocky ground with care. There was such a crazy idea in her mind – she just had to find out – she just had to be sure …

  And finally she found it, the place where she had fallen into an exhausted sleep when she had first arrived at the island, her head resting against the knobbly black log of fossilised driftwood …

  The log was gone. In its place was an empty outline in the rocks.

  A Splinter of Malice

  A day after the first spindrift of snow had scorched Alan’s palm the storm worsened to a blizzard. His face, though protected by a sealskin hood, felt like a frozen mask and his fingers, inside their fur-lined gloves, were numb. The wind howled about his ears as if competing with the angry roar of the ocean. At least they had managed to furl the sails and anything loose on deck had been stowed below. All the while the snow blew horizontally across the deck, hard as hail, bringing tears of irritation to his eyes and, as the cold deepened, the ice froze in his eyelashes.