Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan; Marianne S. Jablon

  “Why do you think?”

  He brooded, pale gold and citified, behind me. Negra tried to paw the ground, and then made herself desist.

  Neither of us brave humans had said any more about what had interrupted sleep in the forest, but when I’d told him no dragon could fly far on its wings, for from all I’d ever heard they were too large and only some freakish lightness in their bones enabled them to get airborne at all, I suppose we had both taken it to heart. Now here were the valley and the hills, and here was this reek lying over everything, strange, foul, alien, comparable to noth-ing, really. Dragon smell.

  I considered. No doubt, the dragon went on an aerial patrol most nights, circling as wide as it could, to see what might be there for it. There were other things I’d learnt. These beasts hunt nocturnally, like cats. At the same time, a dragon is more like a crow in its habits. It will attack and kill, but normally it eats carrion, dead things, or dying and immobilised. It’s light, as I said, it has to be to take the skies, but the lack of weight is compensated by the armor, the teeth and talons. Then again, I’d heard of dragons that breathed fire. I’ve never been quite convinced there. It seems more likely to me such monsters only live in volcanic caves, the mountain itself belching flame and the dragon taking credit for it. Maybe not. But certainly, this dragon was no fire-breather. The ground would have been scorched for miles; I’ve listened to stories where that happened. There were no marks of fire. Just the insidious pervasive stench that I knew, by the time we’d gone down into the valley, would be so familiar, so soaked into us, we would hardly notice it any more, or the scent of anything else.

  I awarded all this information to my passenger. There followed a long verbal delay. I thought he might just be flabbergasted at getting so much chat from me, but then he said, very hushed, “You truly believe all this, don’t you?”

  I didn’t bother with the obvious, just clucked to Negra, trying to make her turn back the way we’d come. But she was unsure and for once uncooperative, and suddenly his strong hand, the nails groomed even now, came down on my arm.

  “Wait, Apothecary. If it is true—”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. I sighed. “You want to go and challenge it, and become a hero.” He held himself like marble, as if I were speaking of some girl he thought he loved. I didn’t see why I should waste experience and wisdom on him, but then. “No man ever killed a dragon. They’re plated, all over, even the underbelly. Arrows and spears just bounce off—even a pilum. Swords clang and snap in half. Yes, yes,” I reiterated, “you’ve heard of men who slashed the tongue, or stabbed into an eye. Let me tell you, if they managed to reach that high and actually did it, then they just made the brute angry. Think of the size and shape of a dragon’s head, the way the pictures show it. It’s one hell of a push from the eye into the brain. And you know, there’s one theory the eyelid is armoured, too, and can come down faster than that.”

  “Apothecary,” he said. He sounded dangerous. I just knew what he must look like. Handsome, noble and insane.

  “Then I won’t keep you,” I said. “Get down and go on and the best of luck.”

  I don’t know why I bothered. I should have tipped him off and ridden for it, though I wasn’t sure Negra could manage to react sufficiently fast, she was that edgy. Anyway, I didn’t, and sure enough next moment his sword was at the side of my throat, and so sharp it had drawn blood.

  “You’re the clever one,” he said, “the know-all. And you do seem to know more than I do, about this. So you’re my guide, and your scruff-bag of a horse, if it even deserves the name, is my transport. Giddy-up, the pair of you.”

  That was that. I never argue with a drawn sword. The dragon would be lying up by day, digesting and dozing, and by night I could hole up someplace myself. Tomorrow Caiy would be dead and I could leave. And I would, of course, have seen a dragon for myself.

  After an hour and a half’s steady riding—better once I’d persuaded him to switch from the sword to poking a dagger against my ribs, less tiring for us both—we came around a stand of woods, and there was a village. It was the savage Northern kind, thatch and wattle and turf banks, but big for all that, a good mile of it, not all walled. There were walls this end, however, and men on the gate, peering at us.

  Caiy was aggrieved because he was going to have to ride up to them pillion, but he knew better now than to try managing Negra alone. He maybe didn’t want to pretend she was his horse in any case.

  As we pottered up the pebbled track to the gate, he sprang off and strode forward, arriving before me, and began to speak.

  When I got closer I heard him announcing, in his dramatic, beautiful voice,

  “—And if it’s a fact, I swear by the Victory of the Light that I will meet the thing and kill it.”

  They were muttering. The dragon smell, even though we were used to it, sodden with it, seemed more acid here. Poor Negra had been voiding herself from sheer terror all up the path. With fortune on her side, there would be somewhere below ground, some cave or dug out place, where they’d be putting their animals out of the dragon’s way, and she could shelter with the others.

  Obviously, the dragon hadn’t always been active in this region. They’d scarcely have built their village if it had. No, it would have been like the tales. Dragons live for centuries. They can sleep for centuries, too. Unsuspecting, man moves in, begins to till and build and wax prosperous. Then the dormant dragon wakes under the hill. They’re like the volcanoes I spoke of, in that. Which is perhaps, more than habitat, why so many of the legends say they breathe fire when they wake.

  The interesting thing was, even clouded by the dragon stink, initially, the village didn’t seem keen to admit anything.

  Caiy, having made up his mind to accept the dragon—and afraid of being wrong—started to rant. The men at the gate were frightened and turning nasty. Leading Negra now, I approached, tapped my chest of potions and said:

  “Or, if you don’t want your dragon slain, I can cure some of your other troubles. I’ve got medicines for almost everything. Boils, warts. Ear pains. Tooth pains. Sick eyes. Women’s afflictions. I have here—”

  “Shut up, you toad-turd,”said Caiy.

  One of the guards suddenly laughed. The tension sagged.

  Ten minutes after, we had been let in the gate and were trudging through the cow-dung and wild flowers—neither of which were to be smelled through the other smell—to the head-man’s hall.

  It was around two hours after that when we found out why the appearance of a rescuing champion-knight had given them the jitters.

  It seemed they had gone back to the ancient way, propitiation, the scape-goat. For three years, they had been making an offering to the dragon, in spring, and at midsummer, when it was likely to be most frisky.

  Anyone who knew dragons from a book would tell them this wasn’t the way. But they knew their dragon from myth. Every time they made sacrifice, they imagined the thing could understand and appreciate what they’d done for it, and would therefore be more amenable.

  In reality, of course, the dragon had never attacked the village. It had thieved cattle off the pasture by night, elderly or sick cows at that, and lambs that were too little and weak to run. It would have taken people, too, but only those who were disabled and alone. I said, a dragon is lazy and prefers carrion, or what’s defenceless. Despite being big, they aren’t so big they’d go after a whole tribe of men. And though even forty men together undoubtedly couldn’t wound a dragon, they could exhaust it, if they kept up a rough-house. Eventually it would keel over and they could brain it. You seldom hear of forty men going off in a band to take a dragon, however. Dragons are still ravelled up with night fears and spiritual mysteries, and latterly with an Eastern superstition of a mighty demon who can assume the form of a dragon which is invincible and—naturally—breathes sheer flame. So, this village, like many another, would put out its sacrifice, one girl tied to a post, and leave her there, and the dragon would have her. Why not? She was h
elpless, fainting with horror—and young and tender into the bargain. Perfect. You never could convince them that, instead of appeasing the mon-ster, the sacrifice encourages it to stay. Look at it from the dragon’s point of view. Not only are there dead sheep and stray cripples to devour, but once in a while a nice juicy damsel on a stick. Dragons don’t think like a man, but they do have memories.

  When Caiy realized what they were about to do, tonight, as it turned out, he went red then white, exactly as they do in a bardic lay. Not anger, mind you. He didn’t comprehend any more than they did. It was merely the awfulness of it.

  He stood up and chose a stance, quite unconsciously impressive, and assured us he’d save her. He swore to it in front of us all, the chieftain, his men, me. And he swore it by the Sun, so I knew he meant business.

  They were scared, but now also childishly hopeful. It was part of their mythology again. All mythology seems to take this tack somewhere, the dark against the light, the Final Battle. It’s rot, but there.

  Following a bit of drinking to seal the oath, they cheered up and the chief ordered a feast. Then they took Caiy to see the chosen sacrifice.

  Her name was Niemeh, or something along those lines. She was sitting in a little lamplit cell off the hall. She wasn’t fettered, but a warrior stood guard beyond the screen, and there was no window. She had nothing to do except weave flowers together, and she was doing that, making garlands for her death procession in the evening.

  When Caiy saw her, his color drained away again.

  He stood and stared at her, while somebody explained he was her champion.

  Though he got on my nerves, I didn’t blame him so much this time. She was about the most beautiful thing I ever hope to see. Young, obviously, and slim, but with a woman’s shape, if you have my meaning, and long hair more fair even than Caiy’s, and green eyes like sea pools and a face like one of the white flowers in her hands, and a sweet mouth.

  I looked at her as she listened gravely to all they said. I remembered how in the legends it’s always the loveliest and the most gentle gets picked for the dragon’s dinner. You perceive the sense in the gentle part. A girl with a temper might start a ruckus.

  When Caiy had been introduced and once more sworn by the sun to slay the dragon and so on, she thanked him. If things had been different, she would have blushed and trembled, excited by Caiy’s attention. But she was past all that. You could see, if you looked, she didn’t believe anyone could save her. But though she must have been half dead already of despair and fright, she still made space to be courteous.

  Then she glanced over Caiy’s head straight at me, and she smiled so I wouldn’t feel left out.

  “And who is this man?” she asked.

  They all looked startled, having forgotten me. Then someone who had warts recalled I’d said I could fix him something for warts, and told her I was the apothecary. A funny little shiver went through her then.

  She was so young and so pretty. If I’d been Caiy I’d have stopped spouting rubbish about the dragon. I’d have found some way to lay out the whole village, and grabbed her, and gone. But that would have been a stupid thing to do too. I’ve enough of the old blood to know about such matters. She was the sacrifice and she was resigned to it; more, she didn’t dream she could be anything else. I’ve come across rumors, here and there, of girls, men too, chosen to die, who escaped. But the fate stays on them. Hide them securely miles off, across water, beyond tall hills, still they feel the geas weigh like lead upon their souls. They kill themselves in the end, or go mad. And this girl, this Niemeh, you could see it in her. No, I would never have abducted her. It would have been no use. She was convinced she must die, as if she’d seen it written in light on a stone, and maybe she had.

  She returned to her garlands, and Caiy, tense as a bowstring, led us back to the hall.

  Meat was roasting and more drink came out and more talk came out. You can kill anything as often as you like, that way.

  It wasn’t a bad feast, as such up-country things go. But all through the shouts and toasts and guzzlings, I kept thinking of her in her cell behind the screen, hearing the clamor and aware of this evening’s sunset, and how it would be to die… as she would have to. I didn’t begin to grasp how she could bear it.

  By late afternoon they were mostly sleeping it off, only Caiy had had the sense to go and sweat the drink out with soldiers’ exercises in the yard, before a group of sozzled admirers of all sexes.

  When someone touched my shoulder, I thought it was warty after his cure, but no. It was the guard from the girl’s cell, who said very low, “She says she wants to speak to you. Will you come, now?”

  I got up and went with him. I had a spinning minute, wondering if perhaps she didn’t believe she must die after all, and would appeal to me to save her. But in my heart of hearts I guessed it wasn’t that.

  There was another man blocking the entrance, but they let me go in alone, and there Niemeh sat, making garlands yet, under her lamp.

  But she looked up at me, and her hands fell like two more white flowers on the flowers in her lap. “I need some medicine, you see,”she said. “But I can’t pay you. I don’t have anything. Although my uncle—”

  “No charge,” I said hurriedly.

  She smiled. “It’s for tonight.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I’m not brave,”she said, “but it’s worse than just being afraid. I know I shall die. That it’s needful. But part of me wants to live so much—my reason tells me one thing but my body won’t listen. I’m frightened I shall panic, struggle and scream and weep—I don’t want that. It isn’t right. I have to consent, or the sacrifice isn’t any use. Do you know about that?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  “I thought so. I thought you did. Then… can you give me something, a medicine or herb—so I shan’t feel anything? I don’t mean the pain. That doesn’t matter. The gods can’t blame me if I cry out then, they wouldn’t expect me to be beyond pain. But only to make me not care, not want to live so very much.”

  “An easy death.”

  “Yes.” She smiled again. She seemed serene and beau-tiful. “Oh, yes.”

  I looked at the floor.

  “The soldier. Maybe he’ll kill it,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  When I glanced up, her face wasn’t serene any more. It was brimful of terror. Caiy would have been properly insulted.

  “Is it you can’t give me anything? Don’t you have anything? I was sure you did. That you were sent here to me to—to help, so I shouldn’t have to go through it all alone—”

  “There,” I said, “it’s all right. I do have something. Just the thing. I keep it for women in labor when the child’s slow and hurting them. It works a treat. They go sort of misty and far off, as if they were nearly asleep. It’ll dull pain, too. Even—any kind of pain.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, I should like that.”And then she caught my hand and kissed it. “I knew you would,”she said, as if I’d promised her the best and loveliest thing in all the earth. Another man, it would have broken him in front of her. But I’m harder than most.

  When she let me, I retrieved my hand, nodded reassur-ingly, and went out. The chieftain was awake and genial enough, so I had a word with him. I told him what the girl had asked. “In the East,” I said, “it’s the usual thing, give them something to help them through. They call it Nektar, the drink of the gods. She’s consented,” I said, “but she’s very young and scared, delicately-bred too. You can’t grudge her this.”He acquiesced immediately, as glad as she was, as I’d hoped. It’s a grim affair, I should imagine, when the girl shrieks for pity all the way up to the hills. I hadn’t thought there’d be any problem. On the other hand, I hadn’t wanted to be caught slipping her potions behind anyone’s back.

  I mixed the drug in the cell where she could watch. She was interested in everything I did, the way the condemned are nearly always interested in every last detail, even how
a cobweb hangs.

  I made her promise to drink it all, but none of it until they came to bring her out. “It may not last otherwise. You don’t want it to wear off before—too early.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll do exactly what you say.”

  When I was going out again, she said, “If I can ask them for anything for you, the gods, when I meet them…” It was in my mind to say: Ask them to go stick—but I didn’t. She was trying to keep intact her trust in recom-pence, immortality. I said, “just ask them to look after you.”

  She had such a sweet, sweet mouth. She was made to love and be loved, to have children and sing songs and die when she was old, peacefully, in her sleep.

  And there would be others like her. The dragon would be given those, too. Eventually, it wouldn’t just be maidens, either. The taboo states it had to be a virgin so as to safeguard any unborn life. Since a virgin can’t be with child—there’s one religion says different, I forget which—they stipulate virgins. But in the end any youthful woman, who can reasonably be reckoned as not with child, will do. And then they go on to the boys. Which is the most ancient sacrifice there is.

  I passed a very young girl in the hall, trotting round with the beer-dipper. She was comely and innocent, and I recollected I’d seen her earlier and asked myself, Are you the next? And who’ll be next after you?

  Niemeh was the fifth. But, I said, dragons live a long while. And the sacrifices always get to be more frequent. Now it was twice a year. In the first year it had been once. In a couple more years it would happen at every season, with maybe three victims in the summer when the creature was most active.

  And in ten more years it would be every month, and they’d have learned to raid other villages to get girls and young men to give it, and there would be a lot of bones about, besides, fellows like Caiy, dragon-slayers dragon slain.

  I went after the girl with the beer-dipper and drained it. But drink never did comfort me much.

  And presently, it would be time to form the procession and start for the hills.