Dragonslayer

by Wayland Drew

  Before it faded, Galen turned to the cold logs in the fireplace and whispered—too fast—“Habeamus calorem. Let us have heat!” But he felt nothing but the keening music still, and he knew, even before he had completed the charm, that there would be no fire. Some few of the pilgrims had heard and turned questioningly toward him, so that he knew he must repeat the order or be discredited, and with that knowledge there came flickers of panic. Once more he concentrated on the inert logs, and this time when he spoke—“Habeamus calorem!”—it was with a voice augmented, a voice which contained the resonant power of Ulrich’s voice as well; and the logs flamed, and the hall warmed, and when he turned, Ulrich himself, resplendent, stood beside him.

  He stood as he had been when Galen had first come to Cragganmore—Ulrich erect, and virile, and unbowed by age. Ulrich! his beard afire and his eyes issuing their cool challenge to all the world. “Welcome,” Ulrich said, raising his right arm, and instinctively the little group of pilgrims bowed deeply. Then he descended the steps and took each one by the hand, beginning with the two foremost—Valerian, and Greil. Valerian introduced the others: Malkin and Regulus, and Rixor, and Henery son of Henery, and Devlyn Major, and Stepanus, and Mavour, and Harald Wartooth, and Marcellus Minor, son of Marcellus of Ur, and Adamaeus Brittanae, and finally Xenophobius the muleteer, who glowered and mumbled even as he shook Ulrich’s hand.

  “Friends,” Ulrich declared when he had greeted them all, “you are welcome at Cragganmore, and as for the business which brings you hither I guess at it, and at its import for myself. But of that later; for now, let us break the fast of the night, and warm ourselves, and forget the perils through which you have passed and those which are to come.”

  And so they did. Hodge returned chortling from the kitchen with a vast steaming tureen of gruel, and he brought bread and cheese as well, and they feasted. When they had finished, it was full day, and Ulrich signaled for his bowl to be removed and leaned back in his chair. Within a moment, silence had fallen around the table, and one by one the pilgrims turned expectantly to Valerian. The youth rose, opening the satchel which he had worn slung around his shoulder, and Galen was struck immediately by his graceful deportment, by the fineness of his features, by the casual loose drape of his tunic, and by the clarity of his voice.

  “Lord Ulrich,” Valerian said, “the reason why we have come can be plainly told. For longer than anyone can remember, Urland has been terrorized by a dragon, a dragon that has settled in a cave on a mountainside overlooking the town of Swanscombe.”

  “And why,” Ulrich interrupted, his white beard jutting, “has it stayed?”

  “It has stayed because . . . because of a . . . pact.”

  “Ahh,” Ulrich replied. “Again I guess at it. I guess that it is the same accommodation—” he said the word as if it left a bad taste “—that many villages have made in years past, with the Monstrous.”

  “At every half year,” Valerian continued, faltering slightly, “at every equinox, spring and fall, we . . . that is, the people of Urland offer the dragon a young woman, whose name is drawn by lot.”

  Ulrich was nodding slowly. “A woman not more than eighteen years of age, pulchra et casta integraque filla, a pure and beautiful virgin, isn’t that the wording of the old code?”

  Valerian nodded. “It’s not followed perfectly, of course. There are those who . . . who have tried to escape the lottery by marriage or other liaisons, and those who have resorted to disguise and dissembling and—” The youth blushed, “—other devices to escape. But the fact is that the dragon doesn’t seem to care whether the victim is a maiden or not. In the past few years, there have been several married women given to it. Even mothers.”

  “It has taken my daughter,” said Greil.

  “And mine,” said Malkin.

  “And my niece,” said Henery.

  “But, in return,” Ulrich said, his gaze touching each face in turn, spreading responsibility in equal glances, “in return it leaves the village alone.” One by one they nodded ashamedly, none able to hold his gaze except Valerian. “Ah yes.” Ulrich sighed. “It is an old familiar tale, although I have not heard it these many years.”

  “There are those of us,” Valerian continued softly, and again Galen admired the youth’s cool resolve, “who agree that it is a shameful bargain. That it degrades us all. That it has continued long enough. That it should end now.”

  “Already too late for some poor soul,” said Malkin. “You’ve forgotten today is the equinox.”

  Valerian hung his head, nodding. “We were delayed. Nevertheless, we shall not be too late for the next, and we shall end the peril for good.”

  Ulrich was smiling. “Brave words,” he said.

  “With your help,” Valerian said. “That is why we are here, of course.”

  “And do you come with your king’s blessing?”

  The little group frowned and shuffled. Valerian spoke with bitterness. “No. Casiodorus does not know that we have come, or he would have sent his horsemen to bring us back. He does not believe, as we do, that there can be a power as great as the dragon’s, or that it might be possible to destroy the beast. He speaks of balances, of compromises, trade-offs. For him the lives of two girls each year is little enough to pacify the beast.”

  Ulrich laughed. “And has anyone asked the dragon’s opinion? Perhaps it’s glutted.”

  “It’s no laughing matter, sir.”

  “No, no, of course it isn’t, but I tire of these rulers who make their own solutions, create their own problems, perpetuate themselves and their ilk. Your king and his lackeys sound like the type . . .”

  Malkin protested querulously. “Casiodorus isn’t a bad king, sir . . .”

  “Just weak.”

  “Weak, yes, but he acts according to his lights, as they say. He does what he thinks best . . .”

  Ulrich waved this all away with a weary hand. “Of course, of course. And according to tradition, I daresay. It’s always easiest. But tell me, why do you come to me? I have never done battle with a dragon. I’m certainly no hero, like Beowulf or Sigurd, or any of the others. Why me?”

  Again they shuffled uneasily, glancing hopefully at Ulrich, and Valerian said, “It’s because . . . because you’re the last.”

  “Nonsense!” The old man seemed shocked.

  “No, sir. You are.”

  “What about Grom?”

  “Dead. Doing battle with a great serpent in the Tarn Bayrenrich.”

  “Poor Grom! Well, Prospero then.”

  “Out of business. Abandoned his power once and for all. Vanished into the crowd.”

  “Ha! Doesn’t surprise me. The Merridyd sisters, then.”

  Valerian again shook his head. “One dead and the others entangled in equivocations and brews. We hear they’ve lost almost all their power for the Good, and have given themselves over to gold and wickedness.”

  “Yes, that is the temptation, the great danger for sorcerers. Well, what about Elexvir, or Hunneguendo, or Scam, or . . .”

  Valerian shook his head firmly. “Dead. All dead. We’ve checked. No, you’re the last. You are our last hope.”

  The old man sat quiet for a long minute, and the others waited anxiously for him to speak. At last he said, “I didn’t know. The years pass, you lose touch . . . Perhaps in the Western Isles? Someone new?”

  Valerian shrugged and shook his head.

  Ulrich lowered himself slowly into the chair at the end of the table, looking more serious than Galen had ever seen him look. “Tell me about this dragon.”

  “Better,” said Valerian, “I’ll show you.” He motioned to Xenophobius the muleteer, who came shuffling forward, frowning at Ulrich, and deposited a knapsack at Valerian’s feet. “Relics.” Valerian opened the sack and drew out first a handful of fire-blackened stones, ordinary enough except that they exuded such a foul stench that Ulrich’s nose wrinkled.

  For an instant Galen thought he saw a flicker of fear in the old man’s eyes, but
then Ulrich waved the stones away. “Dragon breath? You’re going to tell me that is dragon breath? Pah! Nonsense! Mere fetid swamp gas. Take it away, Galen! Into the moat!”

  Not wanting to soil his hands with the odor, Galen scooped up the pebbles in a scuttle from the fireplace, bore them to the window, and dropped them. For a long time after they had sunk, the moat’s slime bubbled and seethed, and Galen watched it fascinated.

  “And bone,” Valerian was saying, back at the table. “A victim.”

  Ulrich peered at the cracked and fire-blackened part of a hand. He shrugged, unconvinced. “People die. They die in many ways. They all leave bones.”

  “And—” Valerian dug deep, “—these.” He spread on the table three glistening translucent disks, each roughly triangular and about the size of his hand. They bore the same odor, but their shimmering beauty made the stench seem less foul. They attracted everyone who gazed upon them; the pilgrims clustered around the table, Ulrich leaned close, and Galen, drawn from the window, felt a chill as palpable as fingers moving on his spine.

  “Dragon scales,” Ulrich said softly. “Unquestionably.”

  “I gathered them,” Valerian said. “Near the mouth of the cave.”

  “A very old dragon. Very, very old.” Ulrich was musing, running a finger over one of the surfaces. “Observe the striations, like ripples in the bottom of a lake. If you were to count them, you would know how old.”

  “Hundreds,” said Greil.

  “Many hundreds,” said Malkin.

  “When a dragon is this old,” Ulrich went on softly, still touching the scale, “it knows pain, constant pain. After a time it comes to know only pain, to believe that it itself is pain, and that it exists only for the sake of the pain. There comes a point for such a dragon when, after years of yearning for an honorable adversary, it passes beyond that longing, grows more dependent on its young—yes, even for its food . . .” The old man’s voice grew even softer, and at last he lapsed into a reverie all his own, a reverie so profound that he seemed at first not to hear Greil’s whisper to his neighbor:

  “This is a dragonslayer? Why, he talks as if he knew the thing, liked it! Does he not know that the beast is evil?”

  “I know,” Ulrich replied after a long pause, looking not at Greil but at the scales still. “I know that there is something called evil. And I know that there are imbalances to be . . . righted. And I believe that it is possible for a creature, like man, to be inhabited, or to be debased, or perverted.” He shrugged. “Or simply to live too long, so that the world changes, and, in just being what you are, you come to seem evil. Oh yes, my friend.” His stern wise eyes turned to Greil, who dropped his gaze. “I know that condition which the simple and the unfeeling call evil, but speaking for myself, I prefer to think of it as infinite sadness.”

  He fell silent, and for a time they all stood quietly, gazing at the relics on the table and particularly at the last one, which Valerian had brought forward while Ulrich was speaking. It was a red-gray chitinous hook, a foot long, serrated along the inside edge. “I don’t know what this is,” Valerian said.

  “I know,” Ulrich replied. “It is a dragon’s claw.”

  There was a long silence. At last Valerian cleared his throat. “Will you help us, sir?”

  “I have not decided.”

  “You are the only one who can.”

  “So you say.”

  Again Valerian coughed discreetly. “The old scrolls relate that dragons and sorcerers go back a long way together.”

  Ulrich fingered the great claw. “That is true,” he said.

  “In fact, according to some accounts it is said—forgive me, sir—but it is said that dragons are the creatures of sorcerers, the results of their unbridled lust for power, and of incantations gone awry.”

  Ulrich looked sharply at the youth. “So it has been alleged,” he said.

  “It is said further that all of those who accept the power of sorcery also accept responsibility for the alleviation of great suffering.”

  “Some do and some don’t,” Ulrich replied. He was still looking intently at Valerian.

  “Please,” said Greil softly, “you are our only hope.” The others added their murmured requests.

  Ulrich’s hand still rested almost affectionately upon the claw. His gaze had drifted above their heads, and beyond—far beyond—the boundaries of Cragganmore and time. At last he inhaled deeply. “I shall have to think,” he said. “Summon mead . . .” He had almost reached the stairway to his conjuring room when he turned back absentmindedly and pointed with the great claw. “Galen,” he said, waving the thing, “you’d better come with me.”

  He began to labor up the stairs, using the right foot to climb each step and drawing the left painfully up behind it. “Supplicants! Petitioners! My life has been filled with them. Always wanting something that they think they can’t do for themselves.”

  “But this isn’t a little request, is it, Ulrich? This is different, isn’t it?”

  The old man laughed abruptly. “Oh yes,” he said, leaning against the door of the conjuring room, “this is indeed different!” Inside, he began to poke and point with the claw among great stacks of scrolls and folded parchments. “Now then, Galen, I shall need your help. Bring that one out. And that. And that one up there.”

  He soon had a mound of documents spread on the table. All were very old, so old that some began to crumble even as he unfolded them, becoming indistinguishable from the dust with which they were covered. On many, the ink was scarcely discernible, so faded had it become, or so blended with ancient water stains. Galen saw quickly, however, that all dealt with dragon lore. Here were various enormities, horned and smooth, two- and four-legged, tailed and tailless. “Each is different,” Ulrich was saying, tracing details with a palsied finger. “All mortal, thank goodness, and most dead. The question is, which of them remains?”

  Galen looked with horror at the drawings as Ulrich discarded them. He had never seen anything so loathsome. He could not imagine that nature had produced such creatures, or that the natural world, otherwise so sensibly ordered, had room to contain them. “Sir . . .”

  The old man was lost deep in the drawings, his thumb gingerly running across the serrated edge of the claw.

  “Ulrich?”

  “Hm?”

  “That boy, Valerian, said that . . .”

  “Hm? Well, what?”

  “Well, he said that sorcerers created dragons.”

  “He is not the first to say so,” Ulrich replied, peering close at a very old and frail document.

  “But sorcerers, Ulrich! Making monsters? That’s not possible. Is it?”

  “Bring me my glass,” the old man said.

  Galen stood still. There was a terrible emptiness in his stomach. “Tell me, Ulrich. It’s not possible, is it? Not sorcerers.”

  Ulrich straightened very slowly, and his hand found Galen’s shoulder, although he did not look at him. “It is possible,” he said.

  “But . . .”

  “Earth and air, fire and water. Of all men, only the sorcerer controls the elements; of all creatures, only the dragon. Sorcerers are human. They have made mistakes. They will make others.” He looked at Galen. “You will make others.”

  “But you, Ulrich. You would not do such a thing.”

  The old man sighed heavily, and his arm encircled Galen’s shoulders. “I have made mistakes,” he said. “Spells have gone awry. But more powerful magic than mine made dragons. The question is whether mine is sufficient to confront this dragon, perhaps the last.”

  “The last? Do you know it, Ulrich?”

  “Nothing is certain, but I believe so. Hurry, now. Bring me my glass and we shall see. Ah, yes,” he said, when Galen had found and brought the big magnifier, “Do you see here? Do you see this? These claws with the undersides like teeth?” He tapped the drawing, which flaked at his touch. “Vermithrax! The Worm of Thrace! Who would have thought that it had found its way this far, across t
he seas and mountains? Vermithrax, the very worst of them! Ah, my boy.” The old man’s eyes gleamed. “What a history of death has washed across that claw.”

  “Will you go, sir? Can you kill it?”

  “That I do not know. It is very old, but very dangerous. It has more than made up in cunning, stealth, and venom for whatever the years may have taken from it. Perhaps it is barely possible that I could master it. But I am not anxious to meet with Vermithrax. Indeed, I am not anxious. Yet . . .”

  Galen felt his heart leap. He had a sudden inspiration; perhaps, after all, he would not need to travel far for his adventure. “Let me go,” he said. “Let me do it!”

  “You, my boy? Why, you alone would not last two minutes with this dragon. No. I must do it. I alone. Come, let us go below and tell them.”

  “You accept the challenge,” said Greil as the Urlanders rose to greet them.

  Ulrich regarded him. “I accept the responsibility,” he said quietly. “It is a case of need: a sick land, a sick king, a hurt people. I will go.” So saying, he summoned Hodge to join him, and placed his other arm around the old man’s shoulders.

  “We are ready when you are,” Valerian said.

  “So be it. We shall depart within this half hour.” As the Urlanders rejoiced, he drew both Hodge and Galen very close to him. “And so we shall take an unexpected journey together, my old friends. We shall have one more adventure.” He glanced brightly at each in turn.

  Galen was about to respond, but at that moment there was a pounding on the oaken door of the hall, an imperious pounding that silenced the Urlanders’ jubilation. Then immediately it came again, louder, and Galen heard curt voices and raucous laughter in the courtyard.