Chapter 8. Water and Wine

One morning, Magda was sitting in a forest clearing next to the snoozing dragon. Acorn and Bobtail were cropping the small patches of grass that poked here and there in between old beech trees. Dawn was just starting to guild the leafy canopy and the air rang with birdsong. The travelers had been on the move since early evening, but the nights were short this time of year, so Magda did not feel sleepy in the midst of this exuberant spring morning.

They were camped by a clear, rushing stream in a peaceful old forest. For some reason, Magda felt especially hopeful when they had approached this spot. She was disappointed when they got to the stream bank and, tasting  the water, she found that this was nothing more magical than simply a beautiful brook. She got up quietly and began to climb up the slope that led away from the stream.

Eventually she wandered into a small glade. Velvety, bright green moss covered the ground and the tops of large boulders that lay here and there. Dewdrops hung glittering on the curled fern fiddle-heads and the young, delicately feathered horsetails poking out of the moss. This was such a delightful place! Magda sat down on a boulder. She let go of all thought, allowing the dappled light, the cool forest scents, the mingled sounds of babbling water and birdsong suffuse her senses. She sat so still, that a bird alighted almost at her feet. The bird hopped up the slope to the tiny clear spring that pulsed from a crack in the boulder. The spring ran gurgling and splashing merrily along a narrow, stony channel that it had dug in the moss. Crossing the glade, it disappeared on the other side among the roots of the great trees.  The bird dipped its beak in the water and tilted its head up to sky. Magda imagined each cool drop sliding down its throat and began to feel thirsty herself. But she did not want to stir and frighten off the small visitor.

The bird finished drinking and hopped up on a twig. The branch had a large spider web  laden with dew. As the twig bent under the slight weight of the bird, the web swayed and glittered. The bird began to sing. Magda held her breath. She did not know what kind of bird this was, but no nightingale she had ever heard could match its singing. The clear voice rose to the most delicate whistling and fell into a series of clicks and trills. One moment it expanded to fill the sunlit glade, the next moment it shyly retreated into moist shadows of silence. It drew answering calls of other birds and led them through long, sweet interchanges of question and answer, theme and variation. The bejeweled spiderweb billowing and swaying with the song was like a delicate membrane through which the world was contacted and perceived by some unfathomable spirit.

Suddenly, the bird fell silent. Magda heard the rustling of leaves, then a branch cracked beneath a heavy foot. The bird flew off. The familiar black scaly nose poked over a bush. "There you are! You should have left a note before taking off like that. I woke up and got worried," the dragon said, stepping into the glade.
"I am sorry." Magda stretched and realized how long she must have sat without moving. "It is so beautiful here," she offered by way of explanation.  Bookworm looked around. "It is. Still, it is out of earshot from the camp; if you had got into any trouble and needed me, I may have just slept through it." The girl sighed, feeling the enchantment slip away as she returned to the ordinary world in which her body was stiff, and the dragon was reproachful. Remembering her thirst, Magda took the tin mug off her belt and filled it with the water from the little spring. She drank deeply.

A thrill ran through her whole body and her awareness burst open to all the sounds and all the silences around her. All her other senses were now merely extensions of hearing. The play of light and shade beneath the trees echoed the breath of the wind. The scents of  leaves and moss were the earth's reply to the call of the water. The world was filled with many currents of harmony that swirled and meandered far, yet merged together into a single stream. Amidst this abundance, here and there were some blank, dry spaces that needed filling. Magda lifted her voice and sang. It was not any particular melody that she knew, and her song had no words. Rather, the sounds welled up from her in responses to those thirsty spaces that begged to be filled, so they, too, could find their connection to the overall stream of music flowing through the spring forest.

Bookworm sat back on his haunches and looked at the girl in silent amazement. Moving cautiously, so as not to make a sound, he took the mug from her hand, filled it at the spring and poured the content down his own gullet. Steam hissed out of his nostrils. And then he, too, began to sing. His voice did not have a sweet quality — it was raspy and rumbling. Yet it complemented Magda's clear soprano, the babbling of the water and the chorus of birds. His song blended with all the others in just the right way, creating a deeper backdrop for the sparkling thread of the music.

They spent hours by the spring, singing and drinking the water, and singing again. At last, their voices gave out. They returned to their campsite, ate silently and went to sleep. There was no need for them to exchange any words. It was clear that they had found the Bird Spring. They stayed in their camp by the enchanted glade for days and days, drinking from the magical spring, floating upon the stream of harmony, now blending their voices with it, now simply listening. Sunny mornings and watchful nights, wind, thunder, rain — every kind of time and weather had its music that filled them with delight. Once or twice they had to leave the forest for a few hours to get supplies in the nearest town. Magda rode in singing, and people stopped whatever they were doing to listen. Bookworm, flying high overhead, had to restrain himself from singing out loud.

Magda and Bookworm might have lingered near Bird Spring much longer, but an unfortunate incident forced them to leave in great hurry. Magda bought Bookworm a batch of books written in the local language. Unbeknownst to her, one of these books was about wines and wine-making. Bookworm read this thick tome in a single sitting. Magda noticed how much he was enjoying his lunch. “What is this book about?" she asked, seeing him examine each page carefully, holding it against the light and reading it extra slowly before he ate it. He merely mumbled something with his mouth full, winked and smacked his lips. Magda shrugged and turned back to her bowl of stew. After lunch, she took a long nap. When she woke up in the late afternoon, Bookworm was finishing the last few pages. When they were gone, he turned the empty binding this way and that way in his paws, as if hoping that it would suddenly sprout additional pages. He dropped it with a sigh. He then staggered down into the brook, burped and sat down in the water. He was blowing fire now out of one nostril, now out of another and laughing uproariously at this clever trick. The dragon, having imbibed a whole book about wine, was completely soused.

Magda watched him first with astonishment, then with alarm. Suddenly, the dragon sprang up, spread his wings and yodeling "To town, to town!" flew up.
"Bookworm! What are you doing?" the girl hollered.
"I am going to giff a conshert!"  he slurred.
"You are drunk! Come back this instant!"
"Kiss my tail!" drifted down the rude reply.
Horrified, Magda saw the winged silhouette lurch and zigzag across the peaceful golden sky in the direction of the nearest town. She set off in pursuit.

By the time the girl galloped upon foaming Acorn through the unguarded gates of the town, the streets had been deserted. Bookworm was, indeed, giving a concert. The dragon was perched upon the belfry of the town's main cathedral. He was bellowing out bawdy sea chanteys now in one language, now in another, accompanying himself on the carillon.  His caterwauling was punctuated by bright green fireball belches. The terrified citizens had never before seen a dragon, let alone heard one belt out coarse songs. They were now cowering in their cellars. Remembering the fiery sermons about the Apocalypse that they had heard so often in their churches, they were convinced that Bookworm was a messenger let loose out of the gates of Hell to let them know that the end of days had come.

Magda shouted herself hoarse trying to talk Bookworm into coming back to the camp. He blew her kisses with one paw, while continuing to pull on the bell ropes with another. Finally, around midnight he began to quiet down. By dawn, he was back in the forest, looking abashed and nursing a splitting headache. Magda, who had lost her voice, sat with her back to him, wincing as she sipped chamomile tea. Even Acorn, exhausted by the long night, was throwing resentful glances at the dragon.

In a few days, the whole countryside for hundreds of miles was flooded with wild rumors. The story of Bookworm's tasteless, but harmless performance, got blown completely out of proportion and embroidered with all kinds of fantastical details. People were saying that a whole flock of dragons descended on a town, and that they serenaded the inhabitants for a week with obscene hymns to Lucifer. The story went that the winged monsters flooded the streets with rivers of flames; that they had been accompanied by demons who dragged sinners out of their houses and roasted them over fires on long pitchforks; that the hellish creatures melted and recast the bells of every church in town, so that now the only thing you could play on the carillons was the chorus to "Sit upon my knee, my sweetie;” and so on and so forth.

The dragon incident  was widely believed to be a sign that the sins of the people were about to be visited on their heads, and that the end of the world was at hand. Churches had long lines of penitents snaking out of them, as everyone rushed to make confessions and buy holy water. No one was interested in vain and worldly pursuits, such as selling books or buying maps. Magda and Bookworm could not make a living in these conditions, and it was clear that a mere glimpse of the shadow of a dragon would further inflame the mass hysteria. Traveling by night, the girl, the dragon and the two mares made their way north and up into the mountains as fast as they could.

CONTINUED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER