The Dragon's Game

by James Erith

  Libraries, drawing rooms, receptions, ballrooms. The palace went on and on. Wherever she went the creatures were almost, but not quite, human, she suspected. When she looked carefully, their bodies and heads were wrapped in simple sackcloth as they cleaned away piles of dust, and polished the stones and rubbed the glass in the huge windows.

  Even the majestic fireplace, a grand construction the size of a small house, had a team of these strange people working on a wooden scaffold rendering the stonework. When she moved closer, the strange creatures huddled together and turned away as if they were in fear of her.

  Her stomach rumbled, and when she mentioned food, the small, long-bearded servants, with black eyes and bushy eyebrows, like elves, led her to the dining room where delicious meals were in abundance. She gorged herself.

  Later, intrigued and rejuvenated, she found her way into the library, a vast room, with shelf after shelf piled high with either boxes or ancient scrolls or thick leather-bound books. Ladders scaled high up – almost as far as she could see - and she noticed many boxes had been half pulled out, or broken and patched back together.

  A round, murky pool, like an old, rustic well, sat in the middle of the room. Sue touched the water, amazed to find it fizzle, like a chemical reaction. She moved on, finding rooms containing atlas-globes and another containing an armoury full of dusty dull-coloured weaponry. Through another wide doorway further on, she came upon a broad stone courtyard surrounded by high walls and turrets. Dotted on the floor were curious, rock-hard glass-like puddles, each the size of a large dish and smeared with mud and thick with dust.

  She rubbed one to see the reflection of a man’s face smiling back at her. Wondering if it was a reflection of someone standing above her, she peeked over her shoulder. She was alone. She rubbed a little more. The kindly man smiled back, though his dark, tired eyes were dim and his etched frown lines told of some faraway sadness.

  She moved onto another glass puddle. A girl much the same age as herself, her skin smooth and radiant, confidence radiating from her, her eyes glimmering and her pupils large it was as if she was in love. The next showed a young boy whose large blue eyes sparkled mischieviously, she thought. She smiled back.

  The next puddle showed a handsome, middle-aged woman with plump lips and neat, combed hair and skipping to the next, she found a man with hard eyes and a snake tattoo on one side of his face. In the following puddle, she saw an elderly man with silver eyebrows and a plump, bald head that reminded her of her grandfather. Beside him a wizened-looking man with a long grey beard and watchful eyes, the many years of experience etched into the lines of his face, reminiscent of Old Man Wood.

  And now, at every step, she found puddles. And these strange puddles contained people, people, she realised, who weren’t so very different to the ones she knew.

  Sue wondered if these magical, living gravestones were some kind of Havilarian graveyard or a memorial to Havilah’s dead. The more she thought about it, the odder she found it, and the less she wanted to be there.

  ‘Come to spy on my lost souls?’ Cain’s voice said.

  Sue stood up smartly and flicked her head towards the voice. ‘Lost souls? Oh. Sorry. Is that what they are?’ She started towards the door, as if, somehow, she’d encroached. ‘Are they dead?’ she said.

  ‘They’re frozen in time, dear girl.’

  ‘Wow. Whatever did they do?’

  ‘In a rage,’ Cain sighed, ‘I put them there.’

  Sue looked appalled. ‘And you left them there, like that?

  Cain sighed. ‘I’m afraid that one of the side-effects of losing my eyes meant I had no means of turning them back into their usual selves.’

  Sue moved along to another puddle and dusted it off. ‘How long have they been like this?’ she asked.

  Cain sensed her confusion and her unease. ‘Right at the beginning of all this, a long, long time ago, I had my eyes taken away from me.’

  ‘It sounds like you probably deserved it,’ Sue said. ‘But removing eyes is pretty barbaric, isn’t it.’

  ‘My thoughts too, dear girl. I’m not sure you'd know this, but eyes are the source of pure magic. Used in the right way, to the right person with the right training, they can generate huge power. When mine were scooped out, I lost that power. And subsequently, I was never able to change these people back.’

  ‘That’s an awful story,’ she said. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘Oh, the pain of having eyes removed is nothing compared to the agony of losing an entire people.’

  Now that she scanned the courtyard, she noticed hundreds more flat puddles littering the floor, most concealed beneath a film of dust.

  'There are so many,’ she said.

  ‘Many millions — across Havilah, from pole to pole. Though I am blind, I see their souls every day. I can almost hear them,’ he said bitterly. ‘And worse, even though I hover over them, they do not see me because I don’t really exist.’

  Sue sensed the sadness and deep sorrow in Cain. ‘What happened, what made you do this to them?’

  Cain sighed. ‘The ones in this courtyard were my finest and most loyal companions. These men, women and children were the cream of my court. When I was summoned for execution, or, perhaps more accurately, incineration, I used the population of Havilah as a means of bargaining. I told them that if I were to be no more, then the same fate would befall all Havilarian people. No one believed I would do it. But I did.’

  ‘You did it as revenge—?’

  ‘At the time, great sacrifices were made, girl.’

  ‘But you froze the entire population of a planet? That’s insane.’

  ‘Indeed. Now, it certainly feels that way. But back then, feelings ran high and, chances are, those same emotions will stir again someday soon.’ Cain tossed a length of his scarf around his would-be neck. ‘Those you see here had been summoned for a celebration. They did not know that our enemy had taken me. They did not know that I’d been tried and sentenced to burn. I told the officers of the trial that if flames licked my torso, I would remove all human life from Havilah.’

  ‘I take it they thought you were bluffing,’ Sue said.

  ‘Precisely. At the exact moment I burned, their bodies crumpled into these watery, glassy puddles, trapped, but preserved, until the spell is broken. The same thing happened to every household in Havilah. Together we have been stuck for eternity, while the planet has succumbed to the lesser beings who once inhabited the caves and the deep crevices of the land.’

  Cain floated over to the doorway and felt for a stick. Pushing the stick ahead of him, he felt his way over to a puddle towards the middle.

  The ghost bent down as if to look at the puddle. ‘This child, inside here, was one of my sons.’

  Sue looked down at a small infant; its blue eyes bulging, bubbles forming on its lips. Sue’s hands moved to touch it, finding a glass-like shield over the child.

  ‘You see, the magic applied even to babes.’

  ‘Haven’t you tried to break the spell?’ she said.

  ‘Of course, I have,’ Cain snapped. ‘Do not take me for a coward: Every day for eternity I have searched for my branchwand to break them out. But strong bonds were put in place, beyond my control.’

  Sue kept her silence but eventually, she couldn’t help herself. ‘What, in heavens name, did you do to get yourself incinerated and leave your very own population to everlasting damnation?’

  She noted a puff of dust nearby and sensed Cain sitting down beside her.

  ‘I’ve had a long time to ponder these things, my dear,’ he began, sighing. ‘My dear girl, life is a process of movement, of continuation, of balance. These people stuck in time are, I suppose, no different to rocks and trees and waters. They survive by living off the complex energy particles that our suns and moons throw at them. But living is different. We move and change over the course of many generations. I suppose it comes down to how the inhabited places of the universe evolve—’

  ‘You haven’
t answered my question at all,’ Sue said, with more confidence. ‘Tell me, what awful thing did you do?’

  ‘I disagreed,’ ‘he said, flatly.

  ‘Disagreed?’

  ‘Yes, I disagreed with others.’

  ‘You argued?’ she said, incredulously. ‘About what?’

  ‘The process,’ he replied. ‘In simple terms, I objected to the direction in which the universe was heading.’

  50 TAKEN TO SAFETY

  Relief filled their faces at the sound of pounding hooves. Suddenly, a blur of white flashed towards them down the dimly lit passageway filling each of them with a sense of awe. Prickles of excitement darted into their minds that a way out was suddenly within reach. They were going to make it.

  The unicorns stopped abruptly in front of one another.

  Instantly, Daisy’s whinnied and stared at her intensely with its large, blue eyes. In the next moment, the unicorn nestled up to her and licked at her wound through the tear in her coat. Then it lay down, inviting Daisy to climb on top.

  Daisy, could barely keep her eyes open. Her shoulder throbbed like crazy, but the saliva of the unicorn congealed the laceration, and she sensed the wound healing.

  She fell over the animal’s sleek, white back and buried her head in its sparkling mane; her hands stretched forward grasping the horn. The unicorn stood up and, with a whinny and a quick look at one another, they tore off, the drumming of hooves pounding the earthen corridors, the pace relentless, slowing only marginally at the turns.

  Soon, they arrived in a chamber almost identical to the one in which they’d entered the labyrinth but, instead of a chute coming down from the ceiling, a stone stairway ascended, and a glimmer of daylight flickered down, illuminating the area.

  The unicorns pulled up. As one, they sat down allowing the four to dismount. Daisy fell awkwardly to the dusty floor.

  Dipping their heads low, as though in a bow, the unicorns turned and raced up the stairs, disappearing from view.

  A strange, tired silence filled the end chamber.

  ‘Why didn’t they take us?’ Archie asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Old Man Wood said, ‘because we must leave the labyrinth with the tablet all by ourselves. They have fulfilled their role.’

  ‘Well, come on!’ Isabella said, helping Daisy to her feet, ‘let’s go.’

  ‘Daisy?’

  She lay clutching her side.

  Archie removed the tablet from his pocket and handed it to Isabella. Then he hobbled over to his twin and picked her up gently before squirming in pain himself. Isabella took her by the hand as Old Man Wood rushed over to Archie’s side. ‘Not far now,’ he said, ‘Think you can make it?’

  Archie grinned. ‘What, and give up now? We’ve only got to get up the stairs. Of course I’m going to make it.’

  51 CAIN’S STORY OF CREATION

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Sue said. ‘What process are you talking about—?’

  ‘The process of creating life, girl. I didn’t think the means of developing creatures and living things to sustain planets should be continued.’

  Sue frowned, her brain swimming with questions. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the evolution of species was working just as well — if not better.’

  Sue shuffled around, needing to move. She brushed more dust off another glassy puddle and waved at the trapped incumbent. ‘So, you’re saying that there was a place which was making creatures for the planets?’

  ‘Yes my dear. The Garden of Eden created all things and sent them to planets around the universes when they were ready.’

  ‘Like … a scientific laboratory?’

  Cain didn’t entirely understand. ‘If you mean that the Garden had special powers of creation, then, yes.’

  Sue shook her head and remained in thought for several beats. ‘You’re telling me that this Garden of Eden place built everything. Plants, soils, seas, living things?’

  Cain examined her. ‘The Garden of Eden has all the apparatus of creation. It is the birthplace of life. It was designed to do such things,’ he said, with a sigh. His scarf fell to the floor.

  ‘Right at the very beginning, when there wasn’t much, my father said, “Let us make a place to live. Let us make creatures and animals and shape the landscape.” Using gases and particles and all the energies of the infinite, he began to make and shape things. One day he blended various gases and waters and elements and along came tiny grains of bacteria that liked to dwell in soils and these were followed by plant life, followed by insects, and so on and so forth. A great deal of time later, when we were young and had learned how to use the power in our eyes to shape and mould, we began to understand the qualities of the elements, the particles and the gases. We joined in with my father's work, beginning with life in the waters. Soon, the waters were quickly populated - they were considered more accessible, I suppose, and mistakes could be hidden. Do you still have a creature on Earth that they call a shark?’

  ‘Yes, there are many types, I think,’ she replied.

  ‘Oh, I am glad to hear it. One of my better ones. Clever little brutes. 'And eels,' he said.

  'Yes, we have those too,' she said.

  'Who do you think put the electricity in their ends?' he said. 'A very tricky bit of engineering at the time,' he crowed. 'Now where was I?’

  ‘Something about gases,’ Sue said.

  ‘Ah, yes. The thing is, the creation of life creates a continual knock-on effect. Make one thing, and you need to make another to feed it and another to feed that and so on and so forth. It becomes complex beyond reason. After some dreadful mistakes, there were rules by which we monitored our creations. One was that all things required a purpose. If they didn’t benefit others, they wouldn’t succeed. Another was called the chain of life—’

  ‘Where one species becomes a link in a chain to support the rest,’ Sue finished off.

  Cain, although invisible, smiled. ‘Indeed. How smart you are, young lady. And all of this happened over a great deal of time, dear girl. When these organisms passed the test of selection, they were sent to different worlds to develop.’

  Sue was rendered numb but eventually summoned her brain. ‘It’s a great story, but seriously, you are kidding me, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that living things evolved from tiny bacteria, from sea-life from particles over millions of years, bit by agonising bit, changing, evolving, piece by piece.’

  ‘Yes, this is true,’ Cain said, ‘but in the first instance, and I am talking an awfully long time ago, much of life did not develop on its own accord. That was the remarkable thing.’

  Sue ran her hands through her hair. ‘So, what was the massive argument about?’ she asked. ‘Must have been pretty drastic for you to do what you did?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was,’ he said, bitterness in his tone. ‘Creation, girl, is the greatest of all gifts. But those in the Garden of Eden grew tired of merely upgrading and tweaking species. They set about developing entirely new ones. At first, it worked. New, smaller species were welcome throughout the worlds. The great reptilian experiment – I think you humans named them dinosaurs – was finally closed down – awful, cumbersome, stupid beasts – and the Garden developed a new master species, humankind. After several prototypes and plenty of tweaks, the eventual outcome showed immense promise. After all, it was, in essence, modelled on ourselves.

  ‘At long last, we had a deserving species that worked. Humankind passed the tests and spread to different planets where, over time, just as we suspected, it thrived without interference. But, buoyed by its success, the Garden had new ideas and announced that it would supersede humankind with a better version, a more original model.

  ‘As you can imagine, this met with furious opposition because, over time, humankind’s development had exceeded everyone’s expectation. The proposal was scandalous. The Garden had no right.’

  ‘I take it you disagreed?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he spluttered. ‘Evolution was w
orking! There was no need to play around anymore.’

  Sue swirled her hand through the dust on the floor revealing another glass puddle-like image of a girl her age smiling enthusiastically back at her. ‘OK. Then what happened?’ she said.

  ‘What does everyone do when there is an unbreakable impasse?’

  ‘They fight, don’t they?’ Sue said.

  The ghost sighed. ‘Indeed. And so, we went to war. The consequence of this action is what you see all around you. And it affects not only these people here but your friends on Earth too, I’m sorry to say.’

  Sue frowned at the girl who frowned back. ‘Then, I take it you lost,’ she said.

  ‘In brief, dear girl, two of the planets annihilated one another, the Garden of Eden was shut down, and every species was moved to dull, bland Earth – a relatively unpopulated place at the time. Earth was left to its own devices in the knowledge that one day, a test would be given to see if humankind and those on earth might have evolved sufficiently to warrant their station, essentially putting the argument to bed, once and for all.’

  ‘And these are the tests my friends are going through?’ Sue said, as she stood up and curled her hair over her ears. ‘Their actions are connected to you here?’

  ‘Yes, my dear. Of course.’

  ‘But, then surely you’d want Archie and Isabella and Daisy to survive? To win.’

  ‘If humankind were successful the Garden of Eden would re-open with terrible consequences for all life. Creations would begin again when there is no need. Creation would dominate once more, because that is what it tends to do. In my opinion, life has matured enough to earn its way.’

  ‘And what if they fail?’

  Cain’s voice perked up. ‘If they fail, the citizens of Havilah will, in due course, wake from their rest. Then, the test of the Garden of Eden will come to Havilah. Strangely, putting a spell on my people may yet prove to be a triumph.’

  ‘No wonder you want them to fail,’ Sue said. ‘But at the cost of seven billion people and countless trillion creatures on Earth?’