by Jack Heckel
“Preserve us,” one of the men behind Liz shouted, “it’s the Dragon Spirit come to life!”
At least two women fainted dead away, and several men ran screaming for the exit. Even Liz and Tomas took a few tentative steps back. The head took no notice of the commotion it was causing but began to move sinuously back and forth atop a skinny, oddly fuzzy red neck, now and again bathing in puffs of smoke that rose from the floor beneath it. It opened a wide mouth filled with crooked white teeth and a limply forked tongue. It hissed, and a sibilant voice issued from its general vicinity.
“I am the ssspirit of the dragon. From dark forcesss beyond mortal ken have I sssprung, and by dark powersss beyond human endurance or imagination hasss the Dracomancccer sssubdued me to hisss will. Who quessstionsss him, quessstionsss me.”
The voice was clearly that of the Dracomancer, only higher in pitch and slurred. Liz ducked her head and, as she expected, saw the dark shadowy form of the Dracomancer crouched beneath the table, pipe in his mouth and arm extended upward above the edge of the table. The illusion having been broken, Liz now recognized that the spirit of the dragon was a puppet. A puppet, it appeared, constructed of a pair of threadbare men’s hose, bits and pieces of fabric, some beads and bobbles, and a couple of twigs. It was an effort the dwarves would have mocked mercilessly as amateurish. Liz started to laugh, but stifled it when she saw that, all around her, men and women, were prostrating themselves on the ground.
“Ssso,” the dragon puppet said, fixing its staring eyes on Liz, “thisss is the unbeliever.” Another puff of smoke rose up, this time accompanied by a cough from beneath the table.
Dozens of people around her all agreed, in various ways and varying degrees of profanity, that Liz was indeed the unbeliever.
“How ssshall we punisssh her?” hissed the Dracomancer somewhat breathily between puffs on his pipe that threw more smoke into the air. Liz snuck a peek and watched as the Dracomancer twisted his arm about so that the puppet’s head moved around as though calling for suggestions.
Even more people voiced their opinions, in remarkably colorful terms, as to what should be done with her.
“Excccellent sssugessstionsss all,” the snake snickered sibilantly, “but I think the Dracomancccer himssself ssshould pronounccce her doom. Ssshall I raissse him back from the deep placesss where now he liesss in ressst?”
Voices from all around begged the puppet to do this.
“Very well,” the puppet said, and started to say something else, but speaking in such a high pitch must have been taxing the Dracomancer’s voice because he had to break off his speech and clear his throat before continuing. He took the moment to make the dragon spirit glare menacingly at Liz, but since there was no way for him to control the puppet’s eyes, he did this by pointing the puppet’s head at Liz and shaking it. It would have been comical had not everyone else in the tavern, including Tomas, been taking it so seriously.
The Dracomancer, his throat somewhat recovered, continued in a slightly lower pitch that was, Liz thought, more sustainable. “But I warn you, the Dracomancccer can travel through worldsss asss the common man might travel the road to Two Treesss. If you anger him again, he may flee thisss world onccce and for all and leave you all to the doom of the Wyrm.”
The people begged for his mercy, and the dragon spirit looked about in a pleased, almost smug manner, if you can judge smugness by the way his cloth snout wrinkled.
After a moment of preening, the puppet shouted, “Sssilenccce!”
Not a sound was to be heard, then a guttural scream began issuing from under the table, and the puppet dragon shook and danced at the end of its arm neck. The paroxysms of the puppet were so violent that one of the twig horns came flying off, though Liz doubted anyone but she noticed.
Then the Dracomancer stood up.
It was neatly done. One moment, only the dragon puppet was visible, then, with an upward swirl of his cape, the Dracomancer was standing in all his mysterious glory. The crowd roared in exultation, and the Dracomancer took a bow. He allowed the cheers to wash over him for a few minutes, the same smug, self-satisfied expression on his face as he had mimicked on the face of the puppet earlier. Then he held up one hand for silence.
“Thank you my friends, my followers, my Dracolytes.”
Another cheer greeted this.
He again held up one hand to quiet the crowd, and that was when Liz noticed that his other hand remained conspicuously tucked among the folds of his cloak.
“I have returned—”
“Show us your other hand!” Liz shouted.
The Dracomancer blanched and tried to continue. “I have returned from the dark regionsss where—”
“Show us what’s under your cloak!” Liz shouted again. Tomas grabbed at her sleeve again, but she shook him off. She felt sick that this fraud might be causing trouble for Will. She felt angry that Charming was out hunting a dragon while this idiot sat in a tavern and claimed to have all the answers. She had to expose him, for Will, for Charming, for the kingdom.
The Dracomancer puffed himself up and glared down at her from beneath his bristly gray brows. “You, Lady Charming, are in no posssition—” He hesitated a moment as he realized he was still speaking in the puppet’s voice. He cleared his throat and adopted his deep, significant cadence again, “I mean, you are in no position to question me. You are condemned by the spirit of the dragon itself.”
Liz thinned her lips and frowned at him. “You mean the dragon spirit that’s hidden in your cloak?”
“That is absurd,” the Dracomancer said with a nervous lick of his lips.
She turned her back on the Dracomancer and addressed the crowd. “I’ll tell you what’s absurd. What’s absurd is that an entire tavern of otherwise sensible people have been taken in by a trickster. He is no sorcerer and certainly no prophet, and his ‘dragon spirit’ is a bloody hand puppet. And you all should know better.” She ended by shaking a finger about the room in general approbation.
Although there was mostly angry denial at her speech, there were also a handful of people who looked genuinely ashamed. They cast their heads down and shuffled their feet in embarrassment.
From behind her, the Dracomancer tried to rally his followers. “Do not listen to her,” he grunted. “She is . . . she is,” he huffed breathily, “trying to deceive you from the . . . from the”—he gasped again—“from the truth of the dragon spirit’s words—”
There was something odd about the way the man kept huffing and grunting as he spoke. Liz turned about and saw that both his hands were now hidden in the folds of his cloak as he struggled to pull the hose puppet from his hand. She was about to point this out and also to question how it was he knew what the “dragon spirit” had said if he had been banished to some other realm, when a howl of rushing wind shook the tavern, sending the shutters and the doors clattering on their hinges and tearing great chunks of thatch off the roof.
Just as suddenly, the wind was gone, leaving people flattened on the floor from its passing fury. As Liz, Tomas, and many others began to pick themselves up, a flash of reddish-orange light lit the night sky through the gaping holes in the ceiling. This was followed by a blast of heat and a sulfurous smell. An echoing, ear-piercing roar rolled down upon them from above, louder than thunder, and Liz’s blood froze.
She grasped at Tomas, standing beside her, and said, almost like a prayer, “Bless us all, Tomas, it’s the dragon, the Great Dragon of the North.”
The Dracomancer, his eyes ablaze with intensity, reached across the table toward her. “Did you say the Great Dragon of the North? Are you absolutely sure?”
Liz backed away from him, nodding. A strange, hungry look came over the Dracomancer’s face, and he murmured, “There’s a chance. It actually might work.”
She was staring at the Dracomancer, trying to figure out why the dra
gon’s name held such significance for him, when Tomas grabbed her and began physically forcing her toward the back door. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Tomas said in a voice that made the hair rise on the back of her neck, not because it was panicked, but because it was eerily calm.
There was another deafening roar and another blast of heat and light from the street in front of the tavern, then more and more people began scrambling wildly away from the dragon and toward the back door. Despite the maelstrom of people and chaos around her, Liz was protected by Tomas’s guiding hand and his powerful fists, elbows, and ironclad boots. He did not so much carve as bull his way through the crowd.
As they went out the back, Liz caught a glimpse of the Dracomancer pushing toward the front of the tavern. His robe and hood had been thrown back exposing his skinny pale body, his high, stilted shoes, and, of course, the dragon puppet on his right hand. He should have looked ridiculous, but he did not. There was no panic in his face, no thought of flight, only a look of mad determination. Then he was lost in a sea of bodies.
The town was still under attack when they made it outside. Tomas led Liz up a rise at the back of the building and stopped next to a well. A din of noise—a mixture of screams and shouts—followed them as the pilgrims below transformed into a terrified mob.
“Stay here, Lady Charming. If it comes for you, use the well for protection. I’ll try and get the horses.”
She grabbed his arm with a strength she didn’t know she had. “No. Don’t leave me here.”
From their position, Liz could see the devastation caused by the dragon. Much of the sprawling village of tents and wagons around Two Trees had been swept aside by the flight of the beast, and here and there, blazes had sprung up in the debris. Most horrifying were the people. Everywhere she looked, there were people. Like ants from a kicked mound, the former townsfolk and pilgrims scattered. Some were running back down the road away from the village with nothing, while others still swarmed around the devastated tent city, trying to salvage what they could.
Above it all flew the dragon, a black stain in the sky. The creature was attacking an area near the edge of town. Over and over it dove down below the walls and houses, then rose again with one or more writhing things in its talons. It was too horrible. Liz knew that she could not remain in safety while countless men, women, and children were devoured by the beast. She would have to go down there to do what she could, even if it was futile, even if all she accomplished was to care for the wounded or comfort the dying.
“We have to go down and help those poor people, Tomas,” she said.
For once, Tomas didn’t argue. He touched his cap, and said, “Very well, Your Ladyship.”
Liz continued to study the dragon as they made their way back down the hill. He was larger than the Great Wyrm of the South, and he had horns. His scales flashed silver when the torchlight struck them. As he beat his wings, tents fell over and collapsed. She saw a fire erupt, but it was near a mass of panicked people, not even close to the dragon. And the things he was gathering, they didn’t have clothes. They weren’t people, they were . . .
Pigs.
“It’s pigs. The dragon’s eating pigs,” she said.
“What?” Tomas said.
“It’s concentrating its attack on the churchyard where that sty was. I don’t think it’s going after people.”
“What about the tents and the fires?” he asked, pointing to the devastation of the village and rapidly spreading fires.
She watched the dragon swoop down once more. Tents flew in the air as its wings buffeted to slow its descent. When it flew high again, another pig squirmed in its talons.
“The wind from his flight is enough to send the tents flying,” she pointed out. “And as for the fires, I suspect most of those are from people knocking over their cooking in their panic.” Even as she spoke, a new fire erupted on a distant hill, far away from where the dragon was attacking.
“You may be right, milady. It’s a bloody madhouse down there, and if the dragon had started the fires, they’d be more concentrated. See how they’re scattered about?”
She did see this. She looked across the valley and saw that hundreds of people were, just like her, watching the drama unfold below almost like the town had become a stage and the hills about the town the seats of some vast amphitheater.
“So, the dragon hasn’t attacked anybody,” she said now, staring at the beast with a thoughtful expression as the creature continued to dive up and down like the hook at the end of a fisherman’s rod.
“Nobody,” he agreed, and added after a pause, “Although, that may be about to change if that crazy Dracomancer has anything to do about it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Look,” he said pointing. “The damned fool is marching right toward the dragon, waving his stick and that silly puppet.” He punctuated his disgust of the man by snorting emphatically. “It’s time for us to go. In my opinion, Two Trees is no place to be and will be even less inviting once the dragon leaves, and all those people start trying to sort out whose stuff is what.”
Liz nodded absentmindedly, but she was busy studying the Dracomancer. He was standing in the square in front of the ruined church, gesticulating wildly up into the air with his staff. Almost directly above him loomed the dragon, which was still glutting itself on the pigs—swooping and rising, swooping and rising.
“He seems to be trying to fight it,” she said
Tomas squinted, then scratched at his head and chuckled. “What a lunatic. He’s damned lucky that dragon seems to prefer the taste of pork to man, or the kingdom would have one less sorcerer about now.” He turned to Liz, and said, “I’m sorry I brought you here, Your Ladyship. You were right. The man’s a fraud, and worse still, a harebrained, one-sock-short-of-a-pair, candle’s-burning-but-there’s-nobody-home madman. All we can hope is that this little display will make all these people sit up and take notice, and we’ll have no more of these fools following him about and causing mischief.”
Liz watched as the little man continued his dance with the dragon. In its frenzied feasting, she doubted it even saw the little man amid the general chaos below. He was such a small, insignificant figure compared to the massive winged creature, but where the contrast in their size and the utter futility of the Dracomancer’s efforts might have made the man appear comical, they did not. If anything, it made him seem larger than life.
Again and again, the dragon seemed to swoop toward him although Liz could see that the real target was the pigsty, and again and again, the Dracomancer gestured wildly with his staff at the swooping dragon. After a few more minutes of this apparent struggle, the monster rose one last time into the air, two squealing pigs clutched in his talons, and, without a backward glance at the town or the sorcerer, flew off to the north.
As the dragon disappeared into the mists high above, there was a roar from the surrounding hillside. Liz watched as all of the people, those who had believed and those who had not, came streaming down into the town toward the square in front of the church where the solitary figure of the Dracomancer lay slumped to the ground, exhausted from his battle.
From behind her, Tomas called out, “We should really go, Your Ladyship.”
She nodded. “Yes, Tomas,” she said. “It’s past time for us to be gone.”
“Perhaps it is,” came a harsh voice, and a group of six black-robed followers of the Dracomancer surrounded them. “But you aren’t going anywhere, Lady Elizabeth. We are holding you and your man for heresy and treason against the Dracomancer.”
Tomas moved between Liz and the lead figure. “They aren’t nothing but farmers, Lady Elizabeth,” Tomas said over his shoulder in a voice loud enough for the men to hear. “Let me deal with them.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword.
They did look like farmers, and
each carried a tool instead of a real weapon. One had a club made of a piece of a fence post, one had a hatchet, another had a scythe, but Liz’ gaze rested on a young man with a pitchfork in his hands. His eyes were wide with fear, but there was a grim determination on his face. He reminded her of Will.
Perhaps Tomas could cut his way through them. They were untrained and might flee once one or two had been struck down, but they were not soldiers, they were simple people driven by fear, and she would not bring about their deaths if she could prevent it.
“No, Tomas,” she said calmly. “We will go with them.”
“What?” he said incredulously, and, turning, lowered his voice to a whisper. “Trust me, Your Ladyship, I wasn’t fooling when I said this is not a place you will want to be now that the dragon’s gone.”
“That is a risk we are going to have to take, Tomas.”
They were led in front of the tavern, where they saw a mob of cheering people carrying the Dracomancer on their shoulders toward them. A chill went up her spine as she looked out over that multitude of faces, all lifted up in a kind of frenzied rapture. She didn’t give voice to the fear, but it struck her that, though she was worried for Elle, perhaps this man and the mob of fanatics he had drawn to him was more of a threat than any dragon.
Liz suddenly felt a wave of nausea. She leaned over to retch and found herself falling. Tomas was beside her, and she heard him say, “The Lady is unwell,” and she fainted.