by Rex Jameson
“There seems a lesson here,” Jandhar said. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth, perhaps? Never insult a god creating miracles?”
The old man chuckled. “Or perhaps, a legend is just a legend to entertain children. They say after he watched the thirty-foot-long dragons explode, the god Sven cried and ran back into the ocean.” The old man winked. “They say his trail of tears to the Small Sea made the Raveaduin.”
Jandhar laughed. “How can I take you seriously? Do you really believe any of this?”
“Of course, I do!” The old man said, smiling, “but what I believe is unimportant. The lessons that I learn from this fable are meaningless in your world. I am not a prince of Visanth… I am no leader of nations…”
The old man stabbed his knife into a large pink area in the dragon’s neck and cut an organ from it. He held the organ in his hand.
“This is a harmless organ, really,” he said. “By itself, it does nothing. It produces a liquid that responds to another made in this other organ. I’ve heard of a bombastic beetle that works in a similar manner—just as violently with steam but stable.”
He stabbed a fatty sac that was adjacent to the extracted one. He pointed to the other side of the throat and then a similar piece of flesh to the one he was holding.
“So, this is how the magic is made?” Jandhar asked. “This is how flames are grown.”
“I am naught but a butcher of beasts and men,” the man said. “I cut things… and it is my expertise to know how to kill and how to prepare. I watched you cook a dragon carcass along the Great Chasm in the Dragongrounds. You and your men are lucky to have survived that meal.”
“The creature had already exploded,” Jandhar said. “These sacks had ruptured.”
“Perhaps only one had and the juices were waiting to contact each other,” the man said, “and how would you know? You didn’t even know what was causing the fire and the bombast.”
Jandhar grew flustered and hot under the collar. The old man questioned his intelligence, and he was not a temperate prince. Still, he bit his tongue.
“Then teach us this curse,” Jandhar said. “Teach us what the butcher knows of the dragon.”
The old man looked at the prince longer than Jandhar expected. “Perhaps the prince knows me better than he leads on…”
The old man licked his lips and pointed at a flap of skin in the dragon’s neck that bordered the two organs.
“This is the weakness,” the man said. “This is where Sven’s curse weakened the most powerful creature in Nirendia.”
Jandhar reached down and stretched the membrane inside the dragon’s neck. It was thick around the edges of the sacs, and a duct ran along the linings of both organs. The channels met in the membrane. As he pulled, the skin tore at the center.
The old man shook the organ in his hand. “The membrane and the ducts were weakened by Sven. As the dragon gets older, the membranes grow weaker. The more the grooves and channels are used, the quicker the deterioration.”
“So, how do we stop the process?” Jandhar asked. “How do we reverse the curse’s effects?”
“There are two ways that I can see,” the man said. “If you want a dragon to live to old age, you can sedate it. If it never uses its glands, and it never opens its jaws, the organs might never meet. Alcohol or opium can be forced on it, keeping it drowsy. Feed it through a tube, and it may be possible for it to die of old age.”
Jandhar sighed deeply. He imagined being held in a bed, forced to drink to stupor, and never moving. The life seemed miserable. The old man’s solution was not only useless but abhorrent to his plans. He needed a dragon capable of unleashing its full power in battle and slaughter.
“What is the second way?” Jandhar asked patiently, trying not to reveal how insulting the first suggestion had been.
The old man licked his lips again. His flesh was so old that it seemed to mold into new shapes with each movement of his tongue. “Where I am from, people celebrate Jarl Sven with a festival of ravens and fires. It’s not uncommon for children to grow inebriated and fall into the fires, burning themselves quite severely. When the skin is young, it heals most scars well but not burns. Burns have to be removed.”
“That’s horrible,” Jandhar said.
“I’m not finished,” the man said. “We found long ago, that living skin could be cut from elsewhere and stitched into the place that was removed. The unburned patch that was cut heals better and can be taken from a place that will not be visible by day,” the old man pointed to his rear with a grin, “out of the privacy of one’s home. If kept clean and cool and rubbed with alcohol, the stitched skin can be strong and durable.”
“That’s barbaric,” Jandhar said, thinking of cutting children. “Perhaps you could just stop having fire festivals.”
The old man laughed. “For a man who thinks himself a hot, burning star, you sure seem reluctant to embrace the fire!”
Again Jandhar swallowed his pride at being made fun of. He kept quiet.
“You’re also missing the point,” the man said seriously.
He cut a square piece of flesh from the inner neck of the dragon and held it against the exposed flap that Jandhar had pulled from the carcass. The old man reached into a knapsack at his side and pulled a thread and needle from it. He sewed a solid stitch with a steadier hand than Jandhar expected.
“Why have you agreed to show me this now?” Jandhar asked. “After I’d all but begged you for information earlier?”
“You asked me what I’m doing here in the Dragongrounds,” the man said, “Well, perhaps I’ve been watching you, worrying over what you might be wanting from these poor, cursed creatures. Maybe I’m interested in seeing what you will do next—what kind of man you truly are. Are you the kind of man who will help our nations meet the trials of an uncertain future, or are you the kind of man who will just burn everything to the ground?”
“I think you overestimate what one man can do,” Jandhar said.
The old man poked at the dragon, thinking seriously.
“I don’t think I can ever overestimate what one person can do,” he said finally. “When you get to be as old as I am and have kept the kind of company I’ve kept, you find it far more dangerous to underestimate people—especially the young.”
“Are you saying you’re afraid of me?” Jandhar asked, trying to lighten the mood with laughter. “I guess old men truly are afraid of everything.”
The old man poked at the dragons and raised his eyebrows. Clearly, he was not scared of dragons.
“Old men fear everything because they have more to lose,” the man said.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” Jandhar said.
“If you’re trying to breed dragons,” the man said, “then the world may have reason to fear you.”
“I’ve already told you that you have nothing to fear from me.”
“Prince Jandhar, we’re not friends,” the man said. “We’re rival nations. Fear is what keeps our boundaries from collapsing.”
Jandhar nodded in understanding. He didn’t want to probe further into the man’s motives.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, he thought.
Jandhar motioned to his guards who struggled to stand in their leather and chainmail armors. They fumbled with the unburned, chicken-sized creature for a moment and ordered each other to carry it back to Ezcril. The old man chuckled.
“It’s young,” he said. “The neck’s soft.”
The guards shrugged, not understanding his meaning.
In a flash of an eye, the old man’s onyx dagger sliced through the spine at the young dragon’s shoulder. The guard holding it fell to his backside with the dragon’s red blood draining across his chainmail.
“Gross!” the guard shrieked.
The old man laughed, and Jandhar embraced him. He patted the old man on the back. “Please, good butcher. Tell me your name, so that I might sing it to the heavens. You have no idea the burden you have lifted from my
shoulders this day!”
The old man smiled slightly as he finally pushed away from the embrace.
“Where I’m from,” the old man said as he looked into the prince’s eyes from but inches away, “names are hard to come by. But you can call me Etcher Woodroe.”
Jandhar patted him on the shoulder. “You are wrong about me. We are friends! We are not rivals. You must come back with me to Ezcril. I’ll make you my chief surgeon—no, a merchant prince! A lord! You’ll be handsomely rewarded! I swear it!”
“I thank you for the offer,” Etcher said, “but I must return to my people.”
Jandhar clicked his tongue and grimaced. He looked over Etcher’s shoulder to the west, and he nodded in understanding. The Crelloni and the Visanth Empire were still at odds over the secession, many thousands of years ago over some forgotten offense. He had never understood the source of the rebellion. His father had told him that any time their ancestors had ventured into Crelloni, they found only more desert. The Crelloni would not fight them. They were ghosts of the sands.
“Maybe one day,” Jandhar said, “we’ll meet again.” He smiled widely. “You know where to find me. Just look for the brightness of the sun!”
The old man put a hand on the prince’s shoulder. “I pray that my eyes are closed that day.”
The two men nodded at each other, and Jandhar lamented that they left as something less than friends. The old man backed away slowly, bowing to him and his men in turn. Then, with a surprising burst of speed, he ran away toward the west, leaving the Visanth party with nothing more than a tall tale, a dragon head, and a bleeding, butchered corpse.
5
The Dragon Prince Rises
Jandhar hugged a bannister in an open-air viewing room. His short, black facial hair scraped against the polished wood as he looked around at the excited crowd of surgeons. These professionals weren’t here for him; they didn’t even acknowledge his presence. They were here for the operation.
This was the fifth attempt at a surgery to correct Sven’s curse in seven months since he had returned from his unusual encounter with Etcher Woodroe in the Dragongrounds. At first, Jandhar didn’t think he needed to see the old man again. He had given the Empire’s most accomplished academics the dragon head with the finely-stitched sac lining, and Jandhar had recited everything he could remember from the short meeting that Etcher and he had over the campfire.
However, despite the advice and example suture, the previous four surgeries had been absolute disasters. Hundreds and possibly even thousands of people—some of the finest surgeons in his empire—had died or suffered crippling injuries in sudden infernos in viewing rooms in Ezcril and Scythica. Jandhar had survived those events because he didn’t seek the limelight in the center of the room. These public viewings were a circus, and he had tried to avoid the attention of his enemies as he conducted his expensive research into the creation of a dragon army.
It was only after the second surgery that Jandhar put out a bounty on the old dragon handler in the desert. The explosion and fire from that botched operation had burned down four city blocks. Dozens of confirmed dead, many of them stampeded and crushed in the packed main arena. There were unknown hundreds missing from the men, women, and children who lined the streets trying to peek into the carnival tent. The sticky, flammable liquid clung to fabrics and wood like a jelly, but one that burned for hours. Combined with the high winds coming over the sandy dunes, it was a miracle that Ezcril still remained at all.
Despite the bounty, Jandhar had neither seen nor heard from Etcher again. Thankfully, the surgeons had learned lessons by now, though, and progress was slowly but steadily being made. The center of the hall was dominated by only three people—a senior lecturer from Ezcril’s main college and two of his assistants. The famous man droned on about the illustrious visitors and viewers, including Jandhar and several other attendees. The prince didn’t acknowledge the introduction, and he paid no attention to the bustling of people around him—sometimes even bumping against him.
And so it was that a man Jandhar had been hoping to meet again stood next to him for several minutes before the prince even recognized him.
“Your people are idiots,” the man said casually as he leaned over the same banister.
“Etcher Woodroe?” Jandhar asked in genuine surprise. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I had to see this for myself,” Etcher said, chewing a long, mint-covered reed they sold in the local markets in Ezcril. “People blowing themselves up to be famous? Visanthi nonsense!”
Jandhar chuckled, straightening his posture. He felt a bit strange trying to impress a wrinkled, old soldier from a rebel country while in the presence of so many self-important nobles.
“You do realize this is your fault in a way, right?”
“Yeah,” Etcher said as he sucked on the small reed, “I guess I do take a certain amount of pride in that.”
The two men watched the assistants pulling thick, flame-retardant gloves onto their teacher.
“He’s going to die,” Etcher noted.
“You have no faith,” Jandhar accused in jest.
“I have all the faith in the world,” Etcher said, “just not in your people.”
Jandhar smirked.
The surgeon made a grand gesture and then began an oratory to the crowd, who struck the banister with their hands in anticipation of a successful operation. Jandhar paid the man no mind. The person with all the knowledge he needed was standing beside him.
“You know,” Jandhar said, “you could save lives by telling me what I need to know. These men don’t have to die. If they knew what you knew, they could safely operate on these creatures. You’d be saving humans and dragons.”
Below, an assistant applied a cloth drenched in opium to the snout of the struggling brown dragon on the operating table. Its small wings flapped against the leather restraints, and it squawked in panic before the drug kicked in.
“I do feel sorry for the dragons,” Etcher said.
A small flame burped from the dragon’s beak before it closed its eyes.
The lead surgeon raised a small patch of skin and held it aloft for the assembled audience. “We’ve removed this from a sibling of the subject, and soaked the skin in a softening solution over the past three hours. We believe that the graft will have a better chance of taking, since it comes from a similar bloodline.”
“What makes you think this is going to work?” an old scholar asked as he leaned against the banister for a better look.
“He has no idea what he’s doing,” a younger man said. “It’s wild speculation!”
“I’m moving toward the door,” another man said, but as he shouldered his way through the crowd, he continued to look at the table.
“For such an advanced civilization,” Etcher said, “you’re remarkably backward.”
Jandhar grumbled but not loud enough to be noticed. “We do not claim to be the best surgeons in the world, but we do claim to be able listeners and learners. Perhaps you should help them.”
Etcher grunted.
The prince returned his gaze to the operating table. The surgeon had given the skin patch back to a student. The other assistant handed the famous man a shiny pair of scissors.
“We may want to head to the door as well,” Etcher said.
“Why?” Jandhar asked. “What’s wrong?”
Etcher didn’t answer. He started pushing through the crowd back toward the door. Jandhar followed.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“He’s removing the lining of the sac,” Etcher called back, “and replacing it with dead tissue from its murdered sibling.”
“And you’re saying that’s not going to work?”
The crowd gasped, and Jandhar turned toward the table to find the surgeon’s flame-retardant sleeve was on fire. He flapped his arms like a bird as a dark liquid spurted from the patient. The dragon twitched and clawed at the table. The opium appeared to be wearing off.
Jandhar pushed through his subjects and caught up to Etcher.
“Why are you doing this?” Etcher asked.
“I’m following you!” Jandhar said.
Etcher turned and stopped.
“Move or I’ll rap your skull,” a young man threatened Etcher.
The old man paid no attention. He stared into Jandhar’s eyes, and the young man who had threatened him moved impatiently to a better viewing spot.
“Why do you want adult dragons?” Etcher asked.
“We live in dangerous times,” Jandhar yelled over the agitated crowed. “Dangerous but full of possibilities!”
Etcher pointed back toward the center of the pavilion. Jandhar followed his finger to find the surgeon and one of his assistants were engulfed in flames. The dragon had exploded and coated them with propellant, and they were rolling on the table and floor to try to put themselves out.
“And you don’t think you’re contributing more to the dangerous part of the times?” Etcher asked.
“Surely, you understand the power we’re dealing with here,” Jandhar said. “They say Visanth once had dragon riders. They say a single man on a full-grown dragon could kill thousands of men.”
“So, you do want to use these creatures against your enemies?” Etcher asked, not trying to mask his contempt. “You want me to tell you how to kill my people?”
“Oh,” Jandhar said. “The Crelloni Separatists and our empire haven’t had a battle in centuries. I can assure you—”
“Your promises mean nothing to me,” Etcher said as he turned toward the portal to the outside world.
“I seek only to make Visanth strong,” Jandhar said, grabbing Etcher by a shawl that hung from the man’s shoulders. “My father is murdered. My empire is weakened. I do not complain. I do not demand reparations. The world is as it is, but that doesn’t mean I have to stay cowed in a corner—”