Origin

by Dave Higgins

  Peering into the corridor, he noticed there were no dragons there either; and that his parents’ door was open. After taking a few false turns, he found them in the dining hall. They were surrounded by tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables, prepared in every way he knew and several he didn’t. Before he could work out whether the blue cones were breakfast or ornament, Burdon had pulled out a chair, forcefully helped him into it, and returned to standing by the wall.

  “Mum, Dad, there’s something wrong with this kingdom.”

  “You’re telling me,” Dobb muttered. “Who ever heard of a breakfast without bacon and eggs?”

  “Burdon said there aren’t any chickens or pigs in the castle,” Patty said.

  “Did he tell you why?” Edmond asked. “They’ve been eaten by dragons. So have all the people. That’s why the castle is empty. That’s why the entire kingdom’s empty. Everyone either left or got eaten.”

  Dobb snorted, spraying fragments of celeriac Thermidor across the table. “Dragons don’t exist.”

  “They exist,” Patty said. “But there aren’t any here. Burdon’s pulling your leg, Edmond. Isn’t that right, Burdon?”

  Burdon shivered. “One of them liked to pull off legs.”

  Patty frowned at Burdon. “What do you mean? Are there dragons here?”

  “We have a small infestation problem,” Burdon said. “But it’s getting better—”

  “—probably,” Edmond finished. “We can’t stay here; not if we want to live.”

  “We can’t leave,” Dobb looked back and forth between his wife and the swede Pavlova. “Patty, say we don’t have to leave. I want to be a Majesty. No one spits on you when you’re a Majesty.”

  Patty glanced between the three of them. “We’ll take a look. Maybe Burdon is right, the problem is getting better.”

  “Probably,” Burdon muttered with a shrug.

  “And he can show us the way,” Patty said.

  “Of course,” Burdon said. “I’ll draw a map.”

  “Or lead us to where they are so we can look,” Patty said.

  “Absolutely,” Burdon said. “I can definitely tell you which road to take to get to Dragon Valley.”

  Patty frowned. Edmond was certain she’d noticed Burdon’s reluctance to accompany them to the valley. However, instead of demanding he come with them, she picked up one of the blue cones and took a bite. After a moment, she spat it out and took a mouthful from the wide end. Face softening in bliss, she spat that out too. “After breakfast. Eat up, Edmond. You’ll need your strength for the walk.”

  Edmond decided he’d rather die on a full stomach than an empty one and tucked in.

  Wrapping a few of the less runny courses in the tablecloth for later, the three of them left the castle in the direction indicated by Burdon. Edmond’s legs were still sore from the long journey the day before and took a few minutes to warm up. Once the discomfort had passed, he looked at the countryside around them.

  Many of the trees they passed had scorch marks on them. Others seemed flatter than usual. As if they were happier growing sideways. The track meandered through scrub and tumbled rocks, the surrounding area becoming more mountainous. Cutting between two peaks, the track wandered into a gloomy valley, bare apart from a few scorched stumps and several polished boulders.

  “I don’t like this,” Dobb said. “It smells like burning here.”

  Edmond tugged on his sleeve. “Why are we walking straight into the dragons’ den, exactly?”

  “Shush,” Patty said. “There’s more than one reason why all the people are gone and everything’s burnt. We need to make sure. Don’t you want to be rich? Are you going to trust that butler? He wants the castle all for himself.”

  The soles of Edmond’s feet vibrated. “What’s happening?”

  A few moments later, the shaking was joined by the thud of leather on packed soil. The sound of heavy, ponderous feet strolling around a cliff. Feet that supported the most hideous creature Edmond had ever seen.

  He’d been expecting a dragon to look like a lizard. And it did, partially. Lizards tended not to have such vicious looking teeth. Or giant horns growing from their heads. Not to mention enormous wings flaring on either side. The dragon fixed its gaze on them.

  Edmond felt the amber eyes bore straight through him. For a moment, he wondered why the dragon’s front legs were called forelimbs if there were only two of them. The bit of the book he’d read hadn’t said. Realising there was a time and place for everything, he abandoned his scholarly consideration, and his pack, and sprinted in the other direction. Two breaths later, his feet left the ground.

  Swinging wildly, he discovered Dobb grabbed him and his mother as he ran past them. His father’s attributes might usually knock holes in things people wanted free of holes, but they also let him outpace a dragon for a while.

  Edmond twisted his head around. The dragon bent over their packs, sniffing them; the way a dog would before it tracked its prey.

  Maintaining the same jolting pace out of the valley, Dobb lumbered for the border. After two horrific-death-free miles, they reached a forest of closely growing trees. Dobb lowered the two of them to the ground. The forest around them was cool and quiet, with no sign of giant monsters.

  “The dragon is real,” Patty said. “We know that now. But so is the kingdom. We can just find a crazy adventurer to battle the monster and sell some of the furniture to pay them.”

  “There are dozens of dragons,” Edmond said. “Not just one.”

  “Dozens?” Dobb’s eyes widened. “That’s more than lots. Patty, I’m not going back there.”

  Patty sighed heavily. “Fine. Where do you suggest we go?”

  “Far away,” Edmond said. “It smelt our packs; I think it’s going to track us.”

  “Track us!” Dobb scooped one of them over each shoulder and lumbered into the forest. He didn’t put them down again until the sun was directly overhead. Dropping them next to a stream, he grab a meaty handful of water.

  The surrounding area was untouched by any sign of man or beast. Edmond doubted anything bigger than a fly had ever seen the little stream.

  Once she’d recovered her breath, Patty slapped Edmond across the back of the head. “Don’t scare your father again.”

  “Then don’t suggest going back there again,” Edmond said. “Those dragons killed everyone in the kingdom.”

  Patty scowled. “If I ever see that Scratchums man again, I’ll…”

  Edmond knelt to get his own drink of water. The Scratchums Company probably knew already. If the dragons ate everyone who went to the kingdom, that freed up the kingdom for the next lucky winner.

  They slumped for a while beside the water, enjoying the sun. Edmond was getting hungry, when he felt a familiar ticklish feeling in his legs. He scrambled to his feet. “The dragon’s found us.”

  “Nonsense.” Patty rubbed Dobb’s shoulder. “We’re a long way from Bad Elbow. It won’t have followed us all this way.” Her smile vanished as a tearing noise came from the way they’d come, followed by half a tree soaring into the air.

  Dobb was on his feet in an instant, grabbing Patty and Edmond up. Dusk approached by the time he slowed. Three staggering steps further, he dropped them and collapsed to his knees. “Are we safe now? Patty?”

  “I don’t know,” Patty said. “We should keep going.”

  “It’s nearly night,” Edmond said. “We need to find somewhere to hide until morning.”

  “We’ll go a little further before we stop.” Patty seemed shaken by the experience. Being wrong so often in a short space of time had overcome even her sense of always being right.

  The shadows grew longer until the sun sparkled its goodbye over the horizon and the world was dark around them. Edmond looked up at the stars, fixing on one, before moving into the lead. He didn’t know where they were going, and it didn’t matter as long as it was further away from the dragon.

  They kept walking until they came to another river. Edmo
nd chose upstream at random. The stars were replaced with rain, soaking them and threatening to flood the path. They’d have to find somewhere to camp soon, but every time Edmond considered a possible place, he also thought of the dragon behind them. At some point, the downpour stopped, but the sense of being chased didn’t.

  In the end, the sun blazed hello before they stopped. Edmond’s feet ached and his eyes were gritty. Dobb veered from one side of the path to the other, almost toppling into the raging torrent beside them.

  Edmond pointed to the grass nearby. “We need to rest.”

  Patty glanced at the clouds above them, still dark grey and filled with rain, but didn’t protest. Arms spread she fell back onto a hummock, eyes closing at once. Dobb lay down beside her, his snores starting a moment later. Only Edmond stayed awake, staring down the river the way they’d come. They’d run and walked for so many hours; the dragon must have found something else to chase.

  He hunched on the grass beside his parents, facing down-river, watching for the dragon. But his eyelids grew too heavy.

  He dreamt he was riding a cockerel toward the setting sun, but the feathers kept tickling him. He squirmed away, but they kept stroking his chest. For some reason, the cockerel was carrying a basket of rotten eggs.

  Edmond’s eyes snapped open. The dragon yawned at him from thirty paces away, sending another blast of sulphurous air wending through the tears in Edmond’s clothes.

  “Get up!” Edmond leapt to his feet.

  His parents jerked, as did the dragon.

  After a moment’s pause, Dobb lunged past, fingers clasping the air less than an inch from Edmond’s neck. Dobb, Patty under one arm, was several paces along the riverbank before he noticed his hand was empty.

  Edmond, left flat-footed by his father’s miss, gawped into the face of the dragon. Being drowned probably beat being bitten in half. Not sure if he should keep eye contact or avoid it, Edmond alternated as he sidled closer to the river.

  The dragon growled, bearing all of its razor-sharp teeth as it stalked to meet him.

  Edmond would never be a famous scholar now. No one ever heard of victim sixty-three of a fearsome dragon.

  The mud beneath the dragon’s feet quaked as the beast advanced. With only a dozen paces separating them, Edmond prepared to jump.

  Before he could, the dragon’s left foot slipped, landing on the river itself. Forelimbs flailing, it toppled sideways into the river. Too startled to change his plan, Edmond’s legs tensed as the raging water sent the dragon bouncing and spinning away.

  Edmond’s lurch ended abruptly as his father grabbed him from behind and sprinted away. For the first time, Edmond felt glad of his Luck. No amount of Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma could have saved him. Only the good fortune to be chased by a clumsy dragon.

  After an hour of running through forest, Dobb reached a road. Unlike the roads in Bad Elbow, this one had fresh cart tracks and few weeds. Picking a direction at random, he headed along it.

  With no trees to avoid, Dobb sped up. Some distance later, he stopped at another junction and set Edmond and Patty down. Edmond had been too jolted around to keep track of time, so he wasn’t sure how far they’d come.

  “Is that dragon going to follow us forever?” Dobb asked.

  “Not forever,” Edmond said. “Just until he eats us.”

  Dobb’s lips quivered.

  Patty put her hand on his arm. “Stop it, Edmond. We’re safe now.”

  “We are?” Edmond asked.

  “It drowned in the river,” Patty said. “You both saw that.”

  “I saw it fall in the river,” Edmond said. “I didn’t see it drown.”

  Patty smiled. “Someone downriver will get a surprise when a dead dragon washes up.”

  Edmond turned away. He wasn’t sure he bought his mother’s fantasy, but didn’t want to scare his father more either; he’d had enough of being slung around for hours. Staggering to the nearby sign, he spelt out the letters one-by-one, then turned back to his parents. “The Kingdom of Green Moss is north, the Kingdom of Broken Bells is west, and the Kingdom of West Nontems is east.”

  “Green Moss,” Dobb and Patty said simultaneously. From the way they said it, Edmond knew they weren’t welcome in Broken Bells or West Nontems.

  “Can we walk normally, then?” Edmond asked. “Since the dragon is dead.”

  “Of course.” Patty glanced back the way they’d come. “The dragon’s dead, so no need to rush.”

  Edmond started walking. His stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in more than a day. Taking a detour into the woods, Edmond found some berries and brought them back to his parents to share. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

  Evening had drawn in when they finally saw signs of life. A lone house stood off to the right, surrounded by fields of crops. It seemed well maintained, with no sign of charring. Edmond breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a farmer emerge and wave a greeting. Patty hurried Edmond along before he could wave back.

  Half an hour later, they reached a sign reading, High Nocking. Edmond stopped. “Is it safe for us to enter? No angry villagers looking for two people who failed to swindle them?”

  Patty drew herself up to her full height. “What a thing to say! We’ve never even passed through Green Moss.”

  Nodding, Edmond led the way into the village. Two dozen houses huddled around a central square. He guessed there were only a hundred people in the whole village. The houses were larger than he was used to and better maintained. A few seemed to have been recently thatched.

  People working or standing gossiping pointed as Dobb, Patty, and Edmond walked up. One of the villagers ran toward a house slightly bigger and even better maintained than the others.

  Edmond fixed his best not-a-threat face. He’d entered enough villages for the first time to recognise the house of a mayor, headman, or other senior person. Before the three of them could stay, the village elder would have to give their opinion on the three strangers.

  In Edmond’s experience, the usual qualification for holding the post was outliving your peers. A qualification that didn’t necessarily lead to the wisest of council, but was a tradition people seemed unwilling to break.

  A man with scraggly white hair and a toothless grin emerged from the fancy house. Hunched but spry, he aimed straight for them, his smile turning into a laugh.

  Edmond wondered if he’d gone mad with old age. He’d seen elders that were calmly appraising or pre-emptively wrathful, but joy at seeing his parents arrive was new.

  “Strangers,” the man said. “Welcome to High Nocking. I am Reginald Boyson—call me Reg.”

  “Nice to meet you, Reg.” Patty released the full force of her high Charisma. Even Edmond found himself liking her; and he knew her.

  “I’m Dobb. This is Edmond and Patty,” Dobb said.

  “Dobb and me are village idiots,” Patty said. “Looking for work.”

  “It seems like you’ve been looking a while,” Reg said. “You’re obviously tired and hungry.”

  Edmond made a mental note of Reg’s high Perception score. It would be difficult to pull one over on Reg. His position as village elder suddenly made a lot of sense. Edmond realised being able to concentrate might be useful for lots of things—unfortunately convincing his parents not to pull some hair-brained scheme probably wasn’t one of them.

  “We are,” Patty said. “Tired, hungry, and just looking for honest work. We’re willing to be village idiots for food, board, and a few coppers a month.”

  Reg stared at her for a while, then nodded. “Excellent. I think that can be arranged. We lost our previous idiot to a ladle accident a few months ago. What about the boy? Is he an idiot too?”

  “Dumb as a sack of milk,” Patty said with a grin. “But he’s not in the profession. He can herd: sheep, cows, goats,—”

  “Pigs,” Reg said. “We have a lot of pigs.”

  Of course they did. Why would anyone farm clean, amenable
animals when they could farm something that enjoyed knocking people into mud then wandering into a vegetable patch?

  Reg beckoned them to follow him to the outskirts of town. A barn, sketched from peeling, rotten boards leant precariously against a tree. It had quite a few gaps where the structure had failed entirely. If it weren’t for the tree, it would probably have collapsed already.

  “This is where the last idiot lived,” Reg said. “He hasn’t been dead above a month, so it’ll still be just as cosy inside.”

  “It’s perfect.” If Patty’s grin had been any bigger, they could have used it to advertise the Moon. “Now, as you said, we’re very tired. Would it be okay if we started work tomorrow?”

  “Of course, of course.” Reg gave a smaller, yet equally warm, grin back. “I don’t doubt people will be looking forward to it. I’ll have someone send you a crust of black bread, so you don’t have to sleep on empty stomachs.”

  As soon as he stepped into the barn, Edmond’s nose itched from the dust. Old lumber was stacked against one wall. The last rays of the sun peeking through the holes in the wall showed the prevailing wind direction. He shrugged; he’d slept in worse places.

  Two villagers brought some old straw and three crusts of black bread. Edmond was so hungry that he devoured the rock hard bread in minutes, then piled his straw into a corner. Moments later, he was asleep, troubled only by dreams of giant lizards chasing him along riverbanks.

  Chapter 7

  Daffodil

  Edmond woke as something tickled his nose. He blinked up into the square face of a young girl.

  Tongue sticking from the corner of her mouth, she continued to tickle the end of his nose with a long stalk, so intent on her task, she didn’t notice he’d woken. Ragged blonde hair, with a few sticks poking from it, hung around her face as if she’d had to cut her way free of a hedge. Apart from the lack of stubble, her jaw was a miniature copy of Dobb’s, and her shoulders were broader than Edmond’s might ever be. Even the product of two idiots could see where parents had put her points.