The Silver Token

by Alan Marble

  “It doesn’t work like that, Jonah, you’ve got to …”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Jonah interjected a little angrily. “How freakin' convenient. Come on, if you can’t come up with something better than that, then why don’t we just stop wasting our time and let me be on my way. I don’t care about dragons or any shit like that. Let me know what the hell you want from me.”

  “Ah, so impatient. So brash. Definitely a youngster,” Abe said, coming across as vaguely amused as he, too, sat forward, resting a pair of big, meaty hands on the desk. Jonah suddenly remembered the sinister mountain of a man who had attacked him in his home, who had punched his way straight through a bulletproof door, and suddenly he felt a little more meek. Though Abe hardly had that same sinister mien, he was nearly the same build, and Jonah suddenly felt rather intimidated. “You a betting man, Jonah?”

  Leaning back a little, eyes widening some, Jonah merely blinked. “A what?”

  “A betting man. Would you like to make a little wager?”

  The man looked dead serious in spite of the faint grin on his face, a certain amount of implied danger hidden behind that air of authority. It was the sort of thing that again seemed to demand cooperation from Jonah, in spite of his desire to be brash, as the man had put it. “Sure, I suppose.”

  Abe grinned a little more obviously. “Good, good. So am I. So here’s a friendly little wager. A hundred dollars says that, before you leave here tonight, you’re going to believe that not only am I a dragon, but you are, too. What do you say?”

  It seemed like an easy bet, but just as he was about to open his mouth to accept his eyes lit upon the gold necklace that the man was wearing, or, rather, the pendant that it held. A round bit of gold, shaped not unlike a coin, and bearing a dragon symbol that was, for all intents and purposes, identical to the one that was on the coin he had in his pocket. Reminded of its existence, he could suddenly feel the shape of it digging in to the side of his leg. For some reason it took his confidence down a notch. “All … all right. It’s a bet.”

  “Good, good,” Abe repeated, leaning back slightly, shifting his hands on the desk slightly. “But that means you have to hear me out. Before we can get to the convincing part, there’s a few things you’re going to have to know. A few things about the situation at hand, a few things about yourself. A bit of a history lesson, as it were. Think you can manage that?”

  He was still a little thrown off by the design on Abe’s pendant, and let a moment of silence pass before he spoke up. “All right.”

  “Thousands of years ago, dragons freely roamed the earth. Mostly in what is now northwestern Europe. Germany, France, the British Isles, and so on. Life was good and simple for generation after generation. We had no real competition, plenty of land, plenty of game to hunt, open skies to soar. We had plenty of squabbles among our own kind, of course, but nothing serious. Life was good.

  “Then, mankind showed up. At first we really couldn’t tell them apart from any other lesser species. They hunted in packs like wolves, lived together in communities like bees, made all manner of strange sounds like the birds. But then we made the remarkable discovery that humans were intelligent, just like us. We could learn to speak with them, interact with them. Imagine the joy, discovering that we weren’t the only sentient beings on the planet! That there was someone else to share our stories with, our lives with!”

  Remembering his cigar, Abe picked it up and stuffed it between his teeth, chewing on it lightly as he continued his tale. “Back then, the humans did not fear dragons, and we were free to be ourselves among mankind. We made friends with them, and some went even beyond friendship. Some dragons learned to use their magic to take human form, settling in among the humans, even making families among them. There was a blending of cultures and peoples. For hundreds of years there was peace.

  “But jealousy is a trait that has always bedeviled mankind. There were sorcerers among mankind who coveted the powers that the dragons had. They coveted our ability to take to the skies, the magic that we were born with that their own could not hope to match. Banding together, these jealous magicians sought to steal the power of the dragons for themselves. They discovered a power over us, a way to bring us down low, to wage war against the dragon clans. In the space of a few short years the long peace we had enjoyed had been forgotten, and all we knew was persecution at the hands of the Sorcerers’ Syndicate.”

  Jonah coughed and shook his head. “Wait, wait. Sorcerers’ Syndicate? Really?”

  “Oh, they’ve gone by different names. A thousand years ago they were the Holy Order of the Magi. Before then it was probably something else. Now they call themselves the Sorcerers’ Syndicate. More of a modern feel to it, I suppose.”

  It was really all too much. Jonah could hardly believe that he had been dragged over a thousand miles to sit in a smoke-filled room and listen to an imposing man named Abe spin a fanciful tales about medieval dragons. He couldn’t help but to respond with a sarcastic tone. “Nice story. Have you thought of selling it to Hollywood?”

  “Please.” Abe sat up again, wearing a rather stern frown. “You promised to listen.”

  “All right, I suppose I did - but what does this have to do with me?”

  “Just listen.”

  Jonah shook his head, folding his arms over his chest impatiently again but nodded. “All right, go on.”

  Abe cleared his throat, his gaze wandering upward as he once again delved into his tale. “Now where were we? Ahh, yes. The Syndicate had found a way to subdue, to subjugate the dragons to their own designs. With frightening speed, one clan after another was decimated, either brought under the sway of the Syndicate or wiped out in their entirety. The dragons were forced to go into hiding, taking on human form, trying to live out their lives in obscurity right in the midst of mankind.

  “It worked, too, at least for a while. But the dragons have an ability, they can see through the disguise. When the Syndicate discovered this, they used the dragons in their control to sniff us out. One by one the dragons in hiding were captured, either to be enslaved or killed. One by one the clans began to go extinct, ancient familial lines being wiped out wholesale. We sought safety in lands beyond the Syndicate’s control. South to Spain and Italy, east to Russia, and so on. And again, for a time, it worked.”

  Pausing for a moment, putting down his cigar, Abe looked in Jonah’s direction to see if there was any response forthcoming, but the young man merely sat in his chair, arms folded over his chest, brooding a little. He had agreed to listen to the tale, not to chime in from time to time. Shrugging silently, Abe continued with a grin. “Now, that’s where the story starts to get personal. For me, at least.

  “My own branch of the clan had fled to Spain. Al-Andalus, as it was called, at the time. Led their lives in relative obscurity among the Moors, integrating into their society. I was born Ibrahim ibn Sawwar al-Maghribi, in the year 1267. Of course, one can’t really go by the same name for seven hundred years. Abraham Sawyer, Ibrahim ibn Sawwar. Get it? Sixty years ago I was Ben Mackie. Before that I was …”

  Abe looked to be rather pleased with his own cleverness in names, but Jonah was growing impatient. “Yeah, I get it. You were getting to the part that has to do with me?”

  The big man looked slightly taken aback by the interruption, the grin on his face fading some, but he merely nodded and cleared his throat. “All right. 1267, right in the middle of the Catholic reconquest of the country, the Reconquista as they called it. Now, I don’t mean to insinuate that the Syndicate was behind it all, but it certainly proved to be a worthy vehicle for their aims of rooting out pockets of dragons in the area. Hell, the Spanish Inquisition a couple centuries later was a perfect disguise for their witch hunt …”

  Jonah blinked. “You’re saying that the Spanish Inquisition was made to hunt down dragons?”

  “No,” Abe said, chuckling as he shook his head. “Not entirely, anyway, but the Syndicate was at least partially behind it. Dragon
s had been reduced to myth by this time; it’s no coincidence that the Church had been describing Satan as a dragon, either. The Syndicate was not interested in the Church other than a means to an end. They couldn’t openly hunt dragons anymore, but doing so under the guise of inquisitors was perfect for them. I … witnessed several members of my family burned at the stake under ridiculous charges. Blasphemy, heresy, you name it.” By the time he paused again, the grin on his face had vanished.

  For a fleeting moment, Jonah almost felt sorry for the man. On the verge of offering some kind of sympathy, he reminded himself of how ridiculous the situation was, frowning a little again before he spoke up. “And how does this bring us to where we are now?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yes, of course. By the 1500s the Syndicate had managed to eradicate almost all of the dragon clans. All that were left were a disparate scattering of individuals who had managed to escape their net, individuals like myself. There were rumors of a few clans who had escaped into Russia and further east, but if they escaped the Syndicate or not, we never knew. Those few of us who remained made our way back north, regrouped in Britain, right under the noses of the Syndicate. Last place they’d think to look, right?

  “I’m sure you can see where it’s going from here. When word got out that the colonies in America were proving successful, most of us were on the first boat across the Atlantic we could get on. Migrated to the colonies, kept our heads down, kept out of the way. It worked, too, for quite a while. The Syndicate, they must have thought that they had us all done for. It wasn’t until … oh … fifty years ago that they started hunting us down anew. Which just about brings us down to you.”

  “Down to me.” Jonah frowned rather dubiously, briefly glancing around for a clock, or some way to know how much time had passed, but there were none. Sighing softly, he turned his gaze back on the man behind the desk. “This had better be good.”

  Abe drew in a deep breath, leaning back in his seat again and relaxing. “Right, so I’ll just come down to it. The parents you know and love are not actually your own; you were adopted. You were born to two members of our clan who had gone into hiding to try and protect you from the Syndicate. When they realized they could not outrun their pursuers, they quickly and secretly put you up for adoption. They did good, as even we lost track of you until just a few years ago.”

  In a way, hearing someone tell him that he was adopted, that his parents were not really his own, was a harder pill to swallow than the insane concept that there were actually dragons. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You can ask them about it, if you like. You know you’ve wondered why you don’t look anything like them,” Abe intoned a little solemnly, folding his arms in his lap in front of him. “Look, being adopted doesn’t mean they’re less real, or less loving, it just means …”

  “It means that you have no idea what you are talking about,” Jonah protested, his voice taking on a slightly defensive tone to it.

  Abe held his hands up in front of him, shaking his head. “Take it easy, kid. I’m just telling it to you the way it is.”

  “Ridiculous. Whatever. I didn’t come all this way to listen to some fantasy, have some guy tell me that I’m secretly adopted, that I’m a dragon, blah blah blah. I just want to know how to get away from all this, to go back to my life. Get away from that guy … that … what did she call him, bull drake …”

  “That’s a bit more difficult than you know,” the big man said, a bit apologetically. “Bull drakes are members of the clans who have been subjugated by the Syndicate. They’ve been bred, for hundreds, even thousands of years, to have a slavish need to fulfill the demands of their masters. Your particular bull drake has been tasked with finding the Silver Token, and he’s not going to stop until either he finds it or he is dead.”

  Reminded of the coin in his pocket, Jonah dug it out and dropped it unceremoniously on the desk, listening to it ring as it settled against the hard wood. “Like I said before, I don’t want it. Get rid of it, keep it, I don’t care. I just don’t want it anymore.”

  “I can’t take it, and I can’t get rid of it. It is a symbol of your place as the Silver Dragon. Leave it here and it’ll just find you again, and so will the bull drake …”

  “Bullshit,” he retorted, slamming his fists on the desk and rising up to his feet. “I am sick of this bullshit. I don’t know what you people hoped to accomplish by dragging me here and then feeding me this fantasy novel reject of a story, but the only thing it has accomplished is to convince me that you people are batshit crazy. I want out of here. Now.”

  Abe furrowed his brow but otherwise seemed rather unfazed by the outburst. “Now, Jonah …”

  “No! Don’t freakin' patronize me. I’m done.”

  Chewing on his lip for a moment, Abe let silence fall over the pair as he seemed to be considering, measuring his response. “All right. I thought you might appreciate a little background to help you understand what’s going on. I hope that it’ll prove useful to you at some point, but clearly it’s not helping you right now. Come. I want to show you something,” he said, rising up from his seat, briefly towering over Jonah before turning to the big, expansive windows behind his desk and pushing them open.

  The window turned out to be a door, a fact that Jonah did not notice against the darkness of the night beyond. “What is it?”

  “Just come here.” Begrudgingly Jonah followed, stepping through the door and out onto a short, narrow balcony. Abe was already reclined against the handrail, gazing out into the sea of lights that spread out twenty stories beneath them. From here he could see the highway in the distance, the constant buzz of lights zipping along in one direction or another, the languid pace of the city as it slept in the deep of the night. “One of the things I love about this office, you get such a great view of the city. Detroit used to be quite the place, you know. Back in the day, back in the fifties …”

  “What’s this have to do with me?”

  “Nothing,” Abe said a little morosely, frowning. “But this does. For centuries our young have been born in human form. It’s a way of protecting ourselves. Normally the whelps are taught their identities at a young age, an advantage you did not have. It’s time for you to embrace who you really are, Jonah. To spread your wings.”

  Once more Jonah bristled. “Come on, this is ridiculous. Make this quick, I’m about to turn and leave.”

  With a sigh, the bulky man in the suit nodded. “Each dragon is different. Some of us breathe fire, some of us don’t. We come in all colors and sizes. The one thing we all have in common is our ability to fly. I want you to fly, Jonah. Take a leap of faith.”

  SIX

  “You’re kidding me,” Jonah croaked, peering out into the dark of the night that surrounded them. “You aren’t really suggesting …”

  “I am,” Abe answered, gruffly, his expression dead serious. “Birds aren’t taught how to fly, Jonah. There are no lessons, no practice sessions. One day they spread their wings and take a leap from the nest. It’s long passed the time for you to take that step, too, Jonah.”

  Jonah took an involuntary step back from the edge, back away from the man as if he suddenly feared he might try to lob him over unwillingly. “You’re insane …”

  “Look. You said you wanted convincing. This is the easiest way to do it. Would it help if we did this thing together?” The big man proved rather spry for his frame, hauling himself up to the side of the little handrail and perching precariously right on the edge, turning back to extend a hand in Jonah’s direction. “Here, come on.”

  “Jesus Christ!” He wasn’t sure whether he was more afraid that he might be hauled over the edge or the man who suddenly seemed more the lunatic would simply topple off right in front of his eyes.

  Abe smiled calmly, all things considered. “It’s safe, I promise.”

  Still Jonah refused, shaking his head vigorously, taking a step back. “You people are goddamned insane. Even if I believed this shit do you honestly think I’d
jump off a building?”

  “Your body knows what to do.” A slight breeze crossed the little balcony, hardly enough to set his disheveled bangs to flapping, but to Jonah it may as well have been a gale, and he responded by pressing himself firmly back up against the wall. Abe still seemed to be wholly unperturbed “You won’t let yourself be hurt. You’ll spread your wings and be soaring before you know it.”

  “No way.” His voice was cracking again, and he was beginning to feel dizzy in spite of the distance that he had put between himself and the ledge. “No way I’m jumping off a building. Not with you, not for you, not for anyone. If you’re out to kill me, there’s better ways to get it done.”

  “Exactly.”

  The response caught him a little off guard. “What?”

  “If we wanted to kill you, we’d have found a simpler way of doing it, don’t you think?”

  There was, in fact a certain logic to the statement; all the same, no amount of good logic was about to convince him to take up the offer. “I don’t know what you people are getting at. Some kind of sick joke, some kind of twisted prank, I really don’t know and I really don’t care, but there’s no way in hell I’m getting up there with you. Just forget about it.”

  “Jonah …”

  Before he could try and make another point he was interrupted by the sound of a door opening inside the office. Both men turned to see Rebekah, her eyes widening at the sight. “Sorry if I’m interrupting something here … but we’ve got a problem.”

  With that same surprising grace, Abe hopped back down to the balcony, straightening out a little ruffle that his clothing had acquired. The calm, almost jovial expression on his face had suddenly grown more serious as he strode his way out of the chill night air and back into the relative safety of the office, Jonah right at his heels. “A problem?”

  “We’ve got company.”

  The statement was enough to get Abe to pause in his steps, his brow wrinkling a little bit. “Company. So you were followed.”