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Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 |
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| w: Friday, November 18, 2005 | |
Chapter 4 Jorreked seized Madrul by the elbow. “Come on,” he shouted in his ear above the noise of the celebration, and he pulled him out of the crowd. He kept on pulling his arm until the two of them reached a relatively empty space close to the road. “Are you coming?” “Coming where?” asked Madrul, surprised. Keirun laughed, and Jorreked made as if to hit him--Madrul ducked, glowering. “Do not be stupid, old woman,” he hissed. “To see the dragon, of course!” Madrul had wanted to protest Jorreked’s insult but he was too struck by the boy’s words. “The dragon?” He gasped. “But... but why?” Zetsoi leaned a little closer and said in a low dangerous tone, “Are you scared, old woman?” Madrul lashed at him with a fist, but the other boy dodged, and they laughed. “Come on then,” said Jorreked, and they turned and slipped into the woods alongside the road before anyone saw them or stopped them. The passage through the woods in the approaching darkness was a strange one for Madrul. The whole world seemed to have disappeared--he wandered in silent ebony, and all doubt faded from him. In the twilight both the trees, with their creepers, and the other boys seemed to be no more than pale ghosts and all consuming shadows, and he pushed through them both without mind to where he was going but never leaving course. He did of course know the area perfectly well--they had played in these woods since he had been small--but in the darkness everything was alien and new. Yet he did not stumble. When they were almost to the field, a wind blasted through the forest around them. Jorreked stifled a laugh. “That’s him,” he called in a low, carrying whisper. “That means he’s here, that’s from his wings. Come on!” The feeling of cognizance fled Madrul and he stumbled blindly after his friends. They slunk from the forest and crouched down behind one of the fallen trees that littered the edge of the field. The sky was a gradient of ebony and cobalt, with streaks of violet and fuchsia flames lancing from the remnant of a sunset. Overhead the clear night was littered with flecks and pinpoints of brilliant white stars. The dragon sat on his haunches on the far side of the field. Half of the men were herding goats--the other half stood before the dragon, gazing up at his muzzled face a few yards above them. They were speaking, but of what none of the boys could hear. At Jorreked’s suggestion they crept stealthily to closer hiding space after closer hiding space, until they were half the field length away from the group and had run out of fallen trees. But still the voices of the men were a quiet sound lifting into the steadily increasing darkness, and when the dragon answered, though his voice was a low rumble beyond bass whose echoes carried far, his words were undistinguishable. Suddenly the men parted and the dragon, crouched, thrust himself from the ground into the air. The heavy beats of the wings flattened the long grass. The boys pushed themselves deeper into their hiding spot--no one seemed to have thought about the fact that the dragon could see them from above! But if he did see them he showed no signs of interest--all of his attention was focused on the herd of goats at the far end of the field. Though the wind had carried them his scent, he was no natural predator of theirs and so they did not flee. But they were nervously shifting against their ropes, as were the men who herded them. The dragon circled, gaining a little altitude and more space to maneuver, and Madrul felt as if he could scarcely breathe. To see the dragon this close! He had never dreamed it would happen. If he had wanted to he might be able to count the scales on the dragon’s chest. The dragon swooped, the air rushing to avoid him; he lashed out--fast! thought Madrul--and his talons sank into the flesh of one goat. With a beat of his wings he lifted, carrying the dead goat in both claws, and his neck snaked down and he tore into the flesh, swallowing mouthfuls. The herders watched him with horrified eyes--one turned away as a splatter of blood fell onto the grass. The dragon drifted down to a corner of the field and continued eating, his muzzle buried in the goat he had killed until it was a pile of bones, almost completely cleaned of flesh. Then he launched himself into the air a second time. He ate three goats in quick succession and when he was done he wiped his muzzle and claws on the long field grass. The men who were not carrying for the now frantically pinned goats gathered around him again. They were much closer now and in fact Jorreked began to prod his fellows, daring them to join the crowd of men. At last he turned on Madrul. “Come on,” he said. “You do it,” said Madrul quietly. “You old woman,” Jorreked hissed. “I don’t even know why you run with us, you’ve got no backbone at all. Why don’t you go home to your mother, you sad little--“ Coldness had seized Madrul at the start of the insults, but then hot anger filled him and he said firmly, “Shut up.” Jorreked did shut his mouth in surprise, but it opened again as Madrul stood up from behind the tree. He felt suddenly cold and alone and for a moment he thought that maybe something would attack him from all sides in that instant. Terror consumed him but he could also see Jorreked and the others out of the corner of his eye and a sudden firmness filled him. He stepped around the rotted tree trunk and approached the men in the crowd. They had been speaking but as he approached they all fell silent. He almost stopped in his tracks at that moment but he could feel the eyes of his friends on his back and he made himself keep going again. “Your... other request?” said one of the men at the front of the crowd, speaking directly to the dragon. “And I see you have,” said the dragon, and then Madrul could not move because the head had turned and the great fist sized eyes, pure yellow with a large black oval pupil, focused on him. The voice lifted, and Madrul could suddenly see the muzzle as it shaped each word. “Don’t hesitate, boy,” said the dragon. “Come forward, please.” Unable to stop himself--his knees moving with all the force of years of tellings on obeying the dragon, who was their protector--he moved forward. The men parted around him, silent and watching, and he moved as if floating in a dream, through the crowd that seemed to last forever. At last he reached the front of the ring and he stood before the dragon. Unbidden, he let his gaze follow the length of the neck up and up until it reached the great head which had curved down slightly to look at him. Feeling those eyes on him he almost involuntarily bowed. “There’s no need for that,” said the dragon quickly, and Madrul straightened himself, feeling his ears grow hot. “Do you have all your things?” He shook his head and then realized he had better actually speak, so he swallowed against the knot in his throat and said, “No, sir.” The dragon blinked. “Is your home far from here?” “Not far, sir, but...” The neck bent and the dragon dropped his head closer to the ground. “But?” “But there are many people on the way, sir, who would wish to stop me and ask me where I was going.” “And you could not simply tell them, ‘I am on an errand for my master’?” His master? “I am only a boy, sir. They would seek to stop me nonetheless.” The large eyes blinked, and it seemed to Madrul that for a moment a faint smile formed itself on the dragon’s lips. “Astute,” he said. “However--“ “My apologies, lord dragon,” came a voice that Madrul distantly recognized as his father’s. Waef came from the far side of the crowd. “My apologies for interrupting,” he said a second time, and then he turned to his son. Madrul was surprised to see that his father’s eyes were glittering with a hint of tears. He was about to say something--his mouth had formed a big shocked o--but his father stopped him with a shake of his head and thrust out the sheathed short sword to him. “Take this,” he said gruffly. “Cut through the woods. You know where to go from here?” Madrul took the sword as if in a dream and nodded. “Then go, get your things, and be quick about it,” said Waef, seizing his son’s shoulder roughly for just a moment before turning him around and giving him a push in the right direction. Madrul ran--across the fields and into the woods, directly towards where the village lay. The ghosts of the trees once more loomed around him but this time he paid them no mind. He did know the woods well--he had grown up in this part of the forest, and even in what was now full dark every tumbled tree and change in terrain was familiar to him. He ran through the woods, dodging boulders and avoiding loose gravel--he passed by the compound, long since repaired, and in the dark as he went by he could only think how insignificant it was. At last he burst out of the trees and into the village. The houses and compounds were silent under the light of the stars--everyone was at the festival in the next village, even Siqan Drema and her family. So when he heard the faintest hint of scraping down one of the alleys he almost leapt out of his skin. He drew the sword--the blade rasped as it came free from its sheath, but it was only a small wildcat, who hissed at him and then bounded away into the night. He carefully sheathed the sword and went into the family compound. It looked desolate and empty, glittering slightly in the pale starlight, the dust flat and barren. He hurriedly approached the kitchen and found one of his mother’s satchels--she would have to do without. Then he went to his bedroom, packed his spare clothing and the small amount of money he had saved from haggling when he had gone with his father to Buoka. He went through his collection of oddities that all boys seemed to have and found that very little would be worthy of taking with him. Nevertheless he pushed them all into the bag. Then he picked up his rolled up bed mat, closed the bag, and slung it over his shoulder. In another moment he was gone--running through the abandoned streets and then back through the woods towards the field. As he ran, he at last let his thoughts consumed him. What on earth did the dragon want him for? Why had he called himself Madrul’s master? That was a term that the servants of the rich men used. Maybe he was to be the dragon’s servant? Yet even though the dragon had certainly not treated him as an equal, Madrul had not received the impression that he was to be a servant. A lord would not have stopped him from bowing, nor would have had the patience for him to get his things. He did not understand When he reached the field his breath left him in a kind of fear as he saw the dragon once again and he slowed down to a walk. A casual glance at the tree trunk showed that Jorreked, Keirun, and Zetsoi had not yet revealed their hiding place--he stifled a grin. That cheered him somehow, and he trotted briskly towards the dragon. Many of the men had dispersed but his father stood to one side--Madrul gave him back his short sword, and briefly his father roughly embraced him before letting him go with a slap on the back. “So you have your things,” said the dragon. “Let us be going then.” He was already wearing the crown of flowers that the girls had spent an entire day laboriously binding together, and Madrul gathered that he had missed some of the important parts of the ceremony. He nodded nonetheless and then remembered himself again. “Yes, sir.” “Very good,” said the dragon, and he lowered himself bodily onto the ground. His body was long and narrow, covered with craggy scales. “Go ahead,” he said after Madrul hesitated. “You won’t hurt me. Climb on up.” The boy approached the dragon’s side and hesitantly at first, then encouraged by the dragon’s prompting, scaled the side as if it were a particularly steep hill. When he reached the dragon’s back, per instruction, he sat between two of the semi rigid spikes of the fringe that ran along the dragon’s back. The dragon bunched his legs and pushed off, rocking Madrul’s head back on his neck, and he scrabbled at the spike in front of him as the dragon’s shoulders bunched underneath him and the wings flapped. The backdraft created by that gust almost ripped the satchel from his grip and he struggled to hang onto that and the bed roll as they continued to rise. “Well, boy,” said the dragon over his shoulder. “What is your name?” “My name is Madrul, sir,” called Madrul. “You do not have to shout. I can hear you if you speak normally. Madrul, is it?” The dragon banked slightly to the left and Madrul felt himself cling at the spike in front of him. He tried to unclench his hands but to either side he could see the earth--falling, falling away, and that sight filled him with an unthinking panic that he struggled to fight down. “How old are you?” “I am twelve years old, sir,” he said again, this time in a normal tone of voice. “Ah,” said the dragon. “A bit young for apprenticeship, is that not?” Apprenticeship? Madrul almost dropped the bag. He swallowed against the lump that the height had brought to his throat as the dragon continued to flap and glide across the landscape. “I’m--I’m to be your apprentice, sir?” The great head swiveled and a large eye, opened wide in disbelief, focused on him. “You were not told?” “I--no, sir. That is, that is to say, sir, I did not know when I got there, sir, that you were seeking an apprentice.” “I have been looking for an apprentice for a little over a year now. At your village’s initial reaction to my question, I did not think they had remembered my request.” He shrugged as he flew, the motion making Madrul grip at the spike in front of him again. “It is of no matter. You do not object? It is a hard work that I do.” “No, sir!” In his haste he shouted again, and then he lifted a hand to cover his mouth. The head swiveled forward again, and the dragon began pumping his wings for a few long minutes until they were brought into a thermal--then he locked the fingers out and let the hot air take the webbing and lift them. After a moment of silence, Madrul felt that he could no longer keep silent. “Um... sir? Lord dragon? What is it that you do, sir?” “You can call me Master Drademar, as that is my name, boy.” He flapped his wings once or twice as he spiraled, the thermal bringing them up and further up until Madrul was sure that if he reached out, he would touch the fabric of the night sky. If they kept flying they would tear it, and the stars would spill out and shatter across the land. They kept flying upwards, and the sky did not rip but seemed to expand above them, as if adjusting to fit them into its velvet structure, and the dragon went on. “Here, in this place and this time, I am a smith, and such is my work. Making the blades that you people use every day is what I do. Even that short sword, the one your father gave to you, was made by my hand, and I can remember each one that I made.” Drademar’s eyes closed for a moment, and he lost himself in the feeling of flight, the pulling of the wings against the downward drag, the gusts of wind this high up buffeting him all around. Height consumed him, and the sensation of flight, and then he let himself hover, wings beating mightily, midair. Madrul looked up from the curve of the ridge in front of him and followed the length of neck towards where the great head swiveled, this way and that. For a moment he was silent. Then, when he was about to ask why they had stopped, Drademar spoke. “Look,” said the dragon. Obediently Madrul glanced around. “Look out,” said the dragon. “Look over the land.” The curve of the earth sloped down far beneath them. Before him and to one side Madrul could see the trembling fire lights of a hundred small villages and larger cities, studding a darkened land covered in the fuzzy outlines of trees and grass, spiked here and there with a mountain. Behind him, when he twisted carefully in his seat, he could see the volcano, from above its massive peak reduced to a round crater set in a dark slope. To the other side, the land fell away, and the curvature of the earth was completed with length upon endless length of glittering water--the expanse of silent liquid looked still from above, each ripple in the shining sea a faint hint, a flicker of motion--every wave a scarce tracing of disturbance from above. Above him, the dome of the sky had shaded itself into indigo and ebony, shades deeper than the tones inside a shadow, laden with a heavy feeling of velvety encompassment. The dark skies consumed the world and covered it with a fine blanket like layer of endless distance and depth, and through that infinite expanse a blazing pinpoint jutted out, diamond flecks against black silk. The cold wind stole his breath away, and on the horizon the waves stirred the length of the sea--the firelights glittered under the night--and the sky blazed an unfathomable answer. Time stirred itself--flecking the world with existence, and beneath him, above him, all around him, he knew that life existed and changed, as time changed and the world changed. The truth sought to fill him but something inside him held it back. He fought against that with restricted him--his own faults, his defects, and his past shattered in an instant. His secure little idea of home shattered in an instant to be replaced with a sense of inspiration, over laden with the idea of the vastness of space and the entirety of the world--not just what he knew, but more, far more than he had ever dreamed of. The dragon continued to rise and fall in the air with the motion of his wings. Madrul was suddenly reminded of the time he had gone out to fish early with his father. The silence of the world--the darkness of the sky, with the first hints of dawn touching the horizon--the quiet lapping of oar at water, or wing at air--and the bobbing motion of existing atop a strange, too thin medium--all were the same, in an instant of unverifiable and blazing time. It was some time later that Madrul became aware of the fact that the sun was rising, for the water where it lapped the eastern horizon had acquired a hint of rose, honey, and plum, the colors liquid and rich and running under the surface of the water and across the dome of the sky. As he watched, their brilliance increased until rose became scarlet blood, honey change into brilliant gold, and plum deepened into a shade of magenta. The tip of the sun achieved precedence over the horizon--a blazing ball of molten tangerine and cardinal--and as it rose the colors intensified until they blended into a single mixture of white light that seared through both the eyelid and the soul. Madrul found himself blinking and ducking from that light, but no matter how he twisted he could not escape its permeating existence as it sought him and warmed him. At last the dragon sighed--Madrul could feel the motion beneath him--and sloped himself forward in a controlled fall. Now more than ever Madrul fought down the sleepiness that had consumed him and struggled to maintain his grip on both his goods and his seat, frightened to lose either. When their altitude had lowered sufficiently, the dragon angled towards the volcano. He banked hard around the craggy slope until Madrul saw a steep, precipitous path that might be scalable for humans. Several hundred feet above this was a cave mouth--it was for this that the dragon aimed, and in no time at all he back winged quickly, his talons scraping against the mouth of the ledge. The gusts from his wings threw up whirlwinds of dust that were sent whirling into the cave and, with no place to go, came whirling out again immediately, amplified. Madrul coughed. Drademar lowered himself to the ground once more and Madrul slid off of his back as he was bidden. “You must be tired,” said the dragon, and at Madrul’s sleepy “Yes, sir,” he smiled slightly. “Then sleep for a while. We shall take a day of rest before beginning.” Madrul glanced around the cavern, but as the dragon lumbered down the back tunnel he indicated a corner there in the main cave with his tail. Madrul stifled a yawn, spread the mat out in the corner, curled up under a layer of blankets, and, despite his pulse racing with excitement--to be an apprentice to the dragon--he promptly fell asleep.
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