The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  “I think I would too if they’ll have me on. Looks like I missed harvest, though.”

  “No matter. There’s plenty to do yet. We just brought a load of the Complex D on this run, so that’s to be processed yet. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Squire Hide there, he’s the boss. Ask him.”

  “Thanks!” Hanuman and Colm headed for the barn and Toby approached the tallest, roundest, and reddest of the three overall clad men.

  Several hours later, he’d unloaded the last box and carried it to the round tower where the grain was stored. The tower was attached to a second barn by a covered chute. Toby and the other men carried the boxes into the barn and stacked them to one side. Toby noticed it had a wooden floor, unlike the stone or packed earth floors he was used to in the barns around Queenston.

  Though the secret ingredient wasn’t as heavy as iron ingots, it was heavy enough that by the time they finished, he was ready for his supper and his bed. But there was Taz to see to first. He hoped Hanuman wouldn’t mind sharing a scoop or two of his kibble, but Colm’s dragon was curled up sound asleep with a full bin of kibble next to a partially emptied trough. Toby took as much as he dared.

  He worried he wouldn’t be able to find Taz, but no sooner had he stepped foot into the woods than he was swooped upon by a joyous dragon, flying in circles around him. “I guess you’re happy to see me, eh, mate?” he asked, and held up the feed bag. “Look what I brought you.”

  Taz ignored his offering in favor of snuffling at his clothing. “You smell Hanuman, do you, girl? Fancy his cologne?” His little girl was growing up, he thought with both pride and sadness—and a touch of embarrassment at his unprofessional sentimentality toward his beast. It was supposed to be a working relationship, always. But he didn’t see really why they couldn’t work together and be fond as well.

  Taz flew off, dodging the skinny tree trunks as she zigzagged through them, and in a few moments returned carrying the carcass of some large animal, so gnawed upon that it was hard to tell what it had been. She dropped it at his feet and back-flapped, inviting him to dine as he had invited her. How could a fellow fail to love such a considerate beast?

  He was prepared to spend the night in the woods beside her, but she flew off on errands of her own and after an hour or so, with the kibble untouched, he returned to the farmyard. Worry that Taz might be reverting to the wild, even after such a short time out of harness, nagged him. He didn’t think she’d hurt anyone, but she might be hurt if she was caught killing the wrong animal. She’d be safer back on the kibble, but there was no assurance they’d be able to find it wherever they went. Maybe he should find her a job, too? Would that make it too easy for anyone looking for them to track them from their job at the iron mine to this place? A man by himself was less noticeable than a man with a dragon. He had introduced himself to the Squire as Roly Smith, after someone he used to know, but hadn’t tried to disguise himself.

  He felt he only needed to stay away long enough and everything would clear up and he wouldn’t need to run anymore, although he was rather enjoying the freedom and the new experiences. He was born and raised a city boy, and had seen the fields and woods only from the balloon. The train and the mine weren’t great examples of fresh country air but better than Queenston with her chimneys and reek. Miss Verity believed him about the balloon accident and he had faith that she would prevail, ultimately. He had only to keep his and Taz’s profiles low and it would all be sorted soon enough.

  Everyone else was asleep by the time he returned and soon enough so was he.

  “Now then, boy,” Squire Hide said the next morning, after Lady Hide had fed the crew an enormous breakfast, “Time for you to learn the making of dragon chow. ’Tis the backbone of the Argonian economy, for it keeps the dragons biddable and handy.”

  The main components of the dragon chow were grains and beans of many sorts mixed in certain proportions. He couldn’t see how that was enough to keep a dragon alive, much less flaming, but then the other, imported ingredients were added and thoroughly mixed in.

  “Of course, some of the strains we grow here for the fodder were scientifically altered to have certain effects on dragons without the other stuff, but as you can see, it’s a complex process, which is why I need to use a boy with his wits about him to learn the way of it.

  “This one here keeps the beasts strong. This other one makes ’em easy to handle. And this one here guarantees a good flame from every animal. And this one, it’s said, tastes so good to them that they can’t get enough of it. Keeps their minds off eating humans or their livestock so they can live and work among decent folk. Many’s a tale I’ve heard from the old ’uns about rampages the monsters used to go on, burning whole boroughs, and murderin’ people till an accord was struck.”

  “How’d that come to pass, sir? I never heard.”

  “Oh aye, well, it were chancy at first, back before the Great War. Some of the magical folk and a couple of royals made friends with the beasts—they were more intelligent than people gave them credit for.

  Dangerously intelligent, making them crafty, sneaky, and sly. That’s why we also have this here ingredient in with the one that makes them calm and biddable. It slows down their heathen minds so they aren’t so good at plottin’ and plannin’ to do us in.”

  “Makes them stupider, you mean?”

  “A bit, and keeps ’em followin’ orders. Anyway, back when there was magic, certain people used it to interpret betwixt dragons and men. There were, if not really friendships, alliances. When the Great War came, the dragons who had friends among the humans enlisted their dragon kin to fight on Argonia’s side.”

  “Is that why we won?”

  “Partly, and partly it was due to the help of the Frostingdungians. They were the ones who noticed the opportunity for using the brawn and fire of the beasts not only in battle, but to serve progress and prosperity for Argonia. See, there was a lot of slashin’ and burnin’ during the Great War. There was no grass for the cattle and sheep and no cover for the wild beasts, who got slaughtered in vast numbers by man and dragon alike. People—and dragons—was starvin’ by the time it was over. It were the Dungie scientists came up with the fodder idea for the dragons—quick growing grains that could grow even in salted earth, a sure and steady food supply. The dragons had the choice to eat it or starve, because huntin’ was right out of the question. It was a great solution. People couldn’t stomach it, but once they didn’t have to compete with the dragons for the food that was left, they did well enough and meanwhile, the dragons that used to be terrifyin’ went to work for folk and earned money to bring in more food.”

  No wonder the stories you heard about olden days were about dragons hundreds of years old while Taz’s generation and two or three back at least were fairly short-lived. Ten years, twenty maybe. He’d have thought if the feed was designed to raise dragons for industry, the manufacturers would want them to live as long as possible, but maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Maybe as they got older, they would get used to the effects of the feed and their own dragonish intelligence and instincts would start overriding the effects.

  Dragon Courting and Hatchery (and Packing Plant)

  The next phase of the Hide-in Valley Operation extinguished that hopeful thought.

  Colm led him to another barn. This one was extremely warm and featured rows and rows of stalls and a central arena fenced with scale-covered cast iron. Each stall held a dragon.

  “Didn’t always work out the way they wanted with those big dangerous dragons who’d been turned loose on humans, even from another country. Even with the fodder, they were still dangerous and too big for a lot of jobs so that’s where our dragon dating service comes in. We matches up the ones that has the qualities we need the most and arrange a con-soom-ation in the honeymoon suite there in the middle. Of course, you never know till the egg hatches if a certain pairing worked out the way we wanted, but there’s other uses for them that don’t measure up.”

  “You find them an
other job?” he asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Colm said looking as cagey as the old dragons he’d been talking about might have looked.

  “Like what?”

  Colm gave him a hard look, then said, “Oh well, you know, for females, they can incubate eggs, for instance.”

  “Then I guess they have to be trained to do certain things, too, so do you do that here or is there another facility where they send them for that?”

  “There’s another facility, you might say.”

  Toby was working up to volunteering the information that he was trained as a wrangler and would be interested in a job in his field, but Colm nodded in the direction of the third outbuilding on the property. “They’ll be put to good use as soon as we get the new business up and running. But that’s enough for today, boy. Time to feed the beasts again and then ourselves.”

  “I’ll feed the ones in here,” Toby said. “Might as well get acquainted.”

  “Just don’t let them get too close, lad,” Colm advised, and went to seek his own supper.

  Toby did feed the dragons and noticed that some cowered in the back of their scale-covered stalls. He wondered what they feared. But he was overwhelmingly curious about the other part of the business being set up in the third building and when the dragons were fed and watered, the indistinct light of evening cloaked him as he went to look.

  It was not locked. They were not ashamed of what the building held, but Toby was sickened.

  He had planned to hide out at Hide-in Valley where he thought he could steal plenty of feed for Taz, maybe in time find jobs for both of them, but as soon as he saw the third building, he ran into the woods.

  Taz flew up to meet him, looking eagerly for food.

  “I’m sorry, girl, but you mustn’t eat that stuff anymore. It’s designed to make an eedjit of you. And maybe chops.”

  They returned, he walking and Taz flying low, to the main rail line where the full cars waited for the next train to haul them back to Queenston. The fugitives had no wish to go back to Queenston, of course, and had to wait for the next Northbound train. Camping with a dragon wasn’t so bad though. He could shelter under Taz’s wing when it rained or snowed and warmth was there whenever he needed it.

  All he saw for the next week were southbound trains, and in disgust, he and Taz took to walking beside the rails again until they ran into a spot where the tracks turned into a trestle bridge over a swift river.

  Then Taz had to carry him across. Not far along on the other side, they saw the train station at Little Darlingham, which was smaller than Queenston, but much larger than the average village, and featured a turntable onto which engines could drive and be turned onto tracks facing the opposite direction by a husky dragon or two. They didn’t yet have such a device in Queenston since all trains went north from there.

  When the next northbound train stopped to feed and water the dragons, they hopped aboard, to Fort Iceworm and onward to foreign parts. Toby had only been to Argonian parts, but he heard that in the lands beyond, mighty forests provided the timber to underlay the steel rails. There would be work there for a lad and his dragon, surely, and in another country, the Argonian authorities wouldn’t be searching for him.

  Chapter 16

  The Widows Brown

  “In the ordinary course of things, Madame, there is nothing to concern you,” said the red-headed lawyer.

  “Does that mean I am still the widow of record?”

  “Most likely,” he said. “Unless the first Mrs. Brown makes a reappearance and then of course, the funds that are hers would revert to her if anything happened to Verity. But really, I wouldn’t worry about it. His Lordship left you a tidy allowance and Verity is not the sort of girl to leave her late father’s wife in need. Just come to me when an expense you cannot cover arises.”

  “But that’s just the point,” Sophronia said. “I am my husband’s rightful steward, at the very least. Verity should be coming to me if she needs something, not the other way around.”

  “These things are complicated,” the little lawyer said with a flick of his long slender fingers.

  “How complicated can they be? The wretched woman ran off with some other man, I presume, leaving my poor Gowen in the lurch and not knowing what became of her, and possibly not daring to find out lest it tear the beating heart from his very chest, he decided she was dead and married me in her stead.”

  “She did not,” Balgair said stiffly.

  “Did not what?’

  “Did not run off with another man, well, not always a man,” he corrected himself then whistled to cover his mistake and said, “Excuse me. This subject vexes me. The truth is, and I have never told this to Verity, she had family business outside the country that required her attention and none other’s.”

  “Business that has not allowed her to return in thirteen years?” Sophronia demanded.

  “Is that how long it’s been? Goodness me. I suppose so, then,” the lawyer said.

  “So she might still return and claim her fortune?”

  “I doubt that really. Her holdings are vast and she would wish that Verity be well provided for. Possibly she is no longer alive, though I have not heard of her death. Please compose yourself, Madame. Be a good kind mother to her child and neither her ladyship nor her ghost, if that be the case, will begrudge your requirements.”

  “Hmph,” Sophronia said, and turned her back on him.

  She did not see the little lawyer’s lip raise over his sharp teeth or hear the low growl growing in his throat. “Will that be all, Lady Sophronia?”

  “Umm,” she said. “Although I do need extra household money this month.”

  “Certainly. How much?”

  She named a figure and he promised to have it ready for her the following morning, and left, happy to be in the night air.

  He knew at once someone had been in his office. He even knew who it was. He smelled Briciu quite clearly, but after a careful look around the place, found nothing missing and changed shape before curling up on a nest of discarded papers. He did not notice the stationery missing from his top drawer.

  Purloining Power

  By the time Ephemera and Verity passed the first station on the northbound line and Balgair had returned to his office, the dark gypsy woman called Romany returned in time and space to the approximate point when and where she’d heard the Howl.

  Science had yet to catch up with time travel, but upon reaching puberty, the woman had discovered that she was even more of a traveler than her people customarily were. She and the fox had sooner or later traveled far and wide throughout the world until settling down for a three years that had ended all too soon for her.

  The guard-supervised flock of wizards lined up to join the conference and banquet in the cave had vanished like a top hat rabbit. She arrived just as the star-studded tail of the last wizardly cloak flicked into the cave and disappeared.

  Romany hurried to catch up, but it was dark and the guards did not see her before they hauled the stone back across the entrance to the cavern. The outer wall was littered with orphaned wands, staffs, flying carpets, and other magical devices emitting pings and zaps of magical charges while in front of the cave, a glass receptacle, a decanter as tall as her waist, was connected to the cavern by a clear tube leading from one to the other.

  Responding to gypsy wisdom proclaiming that hiding from guards was usually a good idea, Romany proceeded warily, taking cover, and watching before approaching them.

  Suddenly, a great prolonged shriek of rage and dismay pierced the thick stone walls of the cavern as the wizards and magicians within discovered that they were now trapped, weaponless, defenseless.

  As the shriek erupted, shredding the night, colored mist sparkled through the tube and dropped into the decanter, filling until the shriek ebbed away to a long collective moan of despair.

  The soldiers fled. Only the assorted animal companions remained to keep her company now, their own individual crie
s amplifying those of their trapped friends.

  The emissions continued flowing into the bottle, the mist half filling the container, coalescing to a viscous shiny liquid. Romany assessed available options for freeing the wizards.

  One of the stouter staffs might be an effective lever to prize the boulder from the opening. Perhaps if she could make a crack, the trapped enchanters could add their strength to hers and pull it back farther, at least far enough, she thought, that she could pass some of their implements through the opening, re-empowering them. Of course, they didn’t all depend upon such items, but many did and had somehow been tricked into relinquishing them. The potion administered to each at the beginning of the trip had made them as docile as the dragons in Argonia of the future.

  She liked to think that her heritage made her too tricky to fool, but she knew if it had not been for the Howl, she would be in there now, bleeding her magic out into the vessel. Because of the time travel, her dose had worn off even before she helped Verity free the young wrangler. As always, her impressions of the period she had spent in her daughter’s time seemed like a vivid dream. Any timeline but the one she currently occupied always seemed that way to her. Only the Howl permeated all times and places—for her, anyway. Others did not seem to notice that she could tell. At least not to the extent she did. Possibly the dreamlike quality of her memories was the only thing that kept her mind intact, though it made it difficult to connect events of life and history into unbroken chains.

  The mossy, hanging branches of the cat-studded trees began to dance, writhing, flapping in the roar of a tremendous wind. The cats and other animals clung to the trees for the sake of their lives as they were all but blown out of them. The wind carried a familiar sulfurous odor. A furnace full of flame exploded the darkness as a form too large to see swooped low and menacing. An enormous talon extended from the treetops to snatch up the glass vessel.