A Dragon-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic

by Margaret Weis

  But I did not run. I did not run because he fell back upon his heels, bringing his hands, the hands which had only seconds ago worked sorcery, up to cover his face.

  “Sorcerer,” I whispered. It was not an accusation, and I was sorry that it sounded like one once spoken.

  He dropped his hands and lifted his eyes to mine. “Aye.”

  I shivered. Not from cold, but from fear. I was well traveled for my ten years. For that I may thank my former career. I had the common knowledge of conjurers, tricksters, dabblers in the unknown, therefore the forbidden. My mind told me that I was in danger. The first thing a conjurer will take, the common knowledge said, is the soul. So fine is his skill that you will not realize your loss until it is too long gone.

  And yet I could see nothing evil, nothing fell, in the dark, tired eyes of the man who revealed himself as part of that suspect brotherhood. There was only Alan, tired, and yet very much the same man who had defended me from the grim harvest of my thievery.

  I listened not to my mind but to my heart. In the light of his fire I could see that he was breathing differently, much like a man who has expended a great deal of effort.

  “M’lord,” I asked softly, going to his side. “Are you unwell?”

  He raised his hand and waved my question gently away.

  “M’lord, can I get you anything? Water—?”

  “Hush, boy,” he said at last. His voice was weary, but patient. He placed a hand upon my shoulder and got slowly to his feet. “Ah. That is better.”

  “Are you ill?”

  This seemed to amuse him, for he smiled. “Not at all, boy. Only used.”

  “Used?”

  “Aye. Used. Magic is not free for the taking, boy. One must give something in return.” He raised his arm, stretching muscles which were cramped and stiff.

  “What—what do you give, m’lord?”

  He paused in his stretch, abandoned it, and came to stand beside me. His hand moved down, lifted my face up to his own. I felt again that sense of falling into the depths of his gaze. I was, again, held by the dark eyes which had only moments ago glowed with sorcerous power.

  “Do—do you seek my soul, m’lord?” I whispered.

  He did not speak for a moment, but seemed to be considering my words. When he did speak, his voice was colored with amusement. “No, boy. Or, perhaps, yes.”

  I trembled now, and moved away from his hand. He shook his head, his eyes softening. “No, boy. I do not seek your soul to take and keep. It is only that if I seek it, I seek it to show to you.”

  “M’lord?”

  “Enough of this now.” He shrugged his shoulders as though throwing off a burden. He took up the skinned rabbits and the sticks I had found to spit them. “Are you not hungry? Our dinner has been delayed a little, but it is more than enough time to make my belly impatient. Come, spit the rabbits, and we will eat.”

  I took the meat from him, and the spits. The tanner’s words seemed of no more importance to me.

  He was not flagrant with his skills, or prodigal of them. I well knew the effort it cost him to use his magic now. Magic is not for free…one must give something in return. I wondered, as I traveled with him, what it was that Alan gave. But I never asked. I had lost the first layers of my fear. I was no longer afraid of him. But I was not comfortable with the idea of magic. I had been too well versed in the common knowledge to lose that fear very soon.

  He asked me once, if I would like to learn his skills.

  “No, m’lord. These skills are beyond me.” I smiled and shook my head. “I can steal a pair of boots—”

  “Sometimes,” he said with wry amusement.

  “Aye. Most times. But I would not try to steal the fire.”

  “Is that what you think I do? Steal the fire?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, well. It might be an answer. From whom do you think I steal it?

  The gods?”

  “The gods? Aye, maybe.”

  He smiled at that. “There are no gods, boy, but those of our own making.”

  I did not argue with him. I had little truck with gods in my short life. Were there gods, indeed? I did not know, and cared less. There was a body of gods commonly worshiped, but they had few of my petitions, and had answered even less.

  “Whatever, m’lord. No, I have no wish to learn your skills.”

  “A pity.”

  “Could you teach me?” The contrary question came, almost unbidden, to my lips. I would not wish to learn, I assured myself, but I was only curious to know if the power could be learned.

  But Alan shrugged. “It does not matter, does it? You would not learn.”

  “Well, aye.” He could not have failed to hear the disappointment in my voice. It was obvious even to me.

  His careful gaze held me for a long time. He is seeking something, I thought. What does he seek when he watches me like that?

  Our travels took us from town to village to town, stopping at the inns and staying a few days. At night Alan would join the folk gathered at the landlord’s hearth and exchange the news of the day. He was a great gossip and loved to hear the tales and legends of the area. He had not told me what task engaged him, and I could not see that any did, except the gathering of tales and the exchange of news.

  Sometimes I asked him where we were going, and he always answered the same.

  “We are looking for the dragon, boy.”

  I would laugh and tell him that everyone knew there were no such creatures as dragons. They inhabited the nursery tales which women told to keep young children behaved and certainly not the real world.

  He would laugh, too, and say that perhaps I was right.

  And so we visited the towns, and he would sit and gossip the nights away. He made no use of his magic, and he maintained, as best he could, the persona of a simple traveler. But at night, by the fading light of an inn’s hearth or over the embers of a dying campfire, he would watch me. I would catch, at times, the light of hope in his eyes, and a careful speculation.

  Winter had come. I had been with Alan for more than a year, and our journeying took us less and less to the villages and towns. In the autumn he had purchased two horses, and this surprised me, although I was not unhappy to finally ride. By the time the first snow had fallen, we were in the foothills of the northern mountains, and we had not entered a town for nearly a month. We had actually passed two by, and as I saw the last one disappear behind the rocky bend of a river, I asked him again where we were bound.

  “Seeking the dragon, boy.”

  The same answer. I began to wonder if he was serious.

  We traveled ever upward, farther and farther, until we lost the beeches and birch trees and were surrounded by the hoary eaves of evergreens. The thin skin of the earth gave way in many places now to rocky bone, thrusting upward in boulders through the soil. We traveled above the tree line, and there were places where all the majesty of mountain and forest was revealed to us.

  After a time we came to places ravaged by fire. Trees were stripped and blackened. Few creatures ran to hide from us, and dinner was difficult to find. What I was able to catch was hoarded and made to last for many days.

  Wrapped in my cloak one night, finishing our scant meal, I asked him what he thought must have caused the fire.

  “Lightning, perhaps?” I asked, for it had been known to happen that a bolt would strike a tree and the fire would spread, unchecked, killing thousands of acres, hundreds of miles of trees.

  Alan shook his head. “The dragon.”

  I looked at him long and saw that he was in earnest. “There are no dragons,” I said, more to quiet my awakening fear than to refute his statement. I did not laugh this time.

  Neither did he. “There is one. And that one guards what I seek.”

  I looked around me at the blackened forest, thinking that in the nursery tales they told you that dragons breathed fire. I huddled deeper into my cloak. I was afraid.

  He saw that and smiled. �
�You need not fear, boy, for we will part company before I meet the dragon.”

  That gave me even greater fear. “Never, m’lord.”

  “I am afraid so, boy. You can be of little use to me then, and perhaps a hindrance. I would ask you to wait for me, though, for it may be, I hope it will be, that I will return and we can continue together.”

  I was frightened, there was no covering it, and I made no attempt to hide it. I was coming to love him. It was, perhaps, that he was good to me, or because a boy at that age easily loves the one who acts as a father to him. Whatever it was, I was not going to leave him. I told him this, but he would have none of it.

  “You can journey with me a little farther. Then we will part company. Wait, if you will, or leave. That is your choice, boy.”

  There was no appeal to that calm decision, and I did not speak further. But I resolved in my heart not to leave him.

  He told me then the purpose of his visits to the towns. He did not love the local gossip for its own sake, he said, but it was the surest way to learn the tales and legends of an area. The farther north we had come, the more often did he hear the tales of the dragon.

  It guarded something, he did not say what, but it was something he was willing to throw his life away for; therefore, I judged it to be of great value. A treasure, perhaps, or a talisman. I did not ask, for I reasoned that it must be a fearful treasure if it was worth his life to gain.

  We traveled for two more days at the timberline, he silent and I inwardly stiffening my resolve not to leave him no matter how he commanded me. And then we came to the peak.

  It was a huge bare place, a giant rocky prominence pocked with the mouths of caves, covered with scree and boulders. Not a living thing grew upon its barren sides. It loomed above us like an angry skull. It made me afraid.

  We were silent for a long time, he watching the peak, I watching him. I knew that he was going to dismiss me. I had my arguments, weak as even I thought they were, prepared.

  He looked away from the peak. “It is time, boy.”

  “No, m’lord. I will not leave now.”

  “You do not have a choice.”

  “Will you tie me here, then, or take my horse?”

  He smiled. “I do not think that will be necessary. You will do as you are bid, as you always have. It has been one of your chief virtues.” Here he smiled again, for we both knew that my virtues were few.

  “How can you ask this of me? We have traveled together for more than a year, m’lord. I thought I had earned your trust.”

  If I had thought that last would be a telling shot, I was mistaken. Alan merely nodded. “You have, over and over again, boy. And now I would entrust you with one more thing.”

  “To abandon you when you need me!”

  “No. You are to wait here.” He reached beneath his cloak and took out the dagger which was sheathed there. In the sunlight I could see a glimmer of light along the hilt of the sword he always wore.

  He is mad, I thought then, and going against a dragon with only a sword. I said nothing, but took the dagger he held out to me. It was a beautiful thing, slim and sharp. The grip was chased silver and bore a single pale green jewel.

  “Keep it in your boot, boy. You may need it.”

  “I want to help you!” It came out more as a wail than an insistence, and I was ashamed to hear the crack in my voice.

  “You cannot help, and would only hinder.”

  “You are going after a dragon with a sword. Where will that get you?” I was angry and my voice mocked. “He will melt your sword, m’lord, and then where will you be?”

  It surprises me now, looking back, that he was so patient with me. But he was, perhaps because he understood something of my feelings. He spoke softly, his voice even and reasonable. “I have more than my sword, boy. I have the magic.”

  “But I want to help.”

  That caused him to laugh. He did not laugh unkindly, but he was surely amused. I was wounded.

  “I am pleased that even now I can provide amusement, m’lord.”

  “Do not be hurt, boy. But you cannot help. You cannot go against a dragon.” He paused then, but went on. “And you have no magic.”

  I was chastened. He was right. I had no magic, and I was, after all, only a small boy, a hindrance. Should I not have turned away the opportunity to learn of his magic? In my mind I knew that I could not have learned enough to be able to help him now. It must take many years of study, I reasoned. Still, in my heart I felt the sharp fang of regret.

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Ah. Now that is better. Wait here. Wait as long as you can or dare. You will know if I am able to return. When you decide that I cannot, you must run for your life. Run as hard as you have ever run before, for if I fail, the dragon will be out and his fury will seek victims. Run back the way we came, boy, and make your way to the King.”

  I stared at him. “To the King, m’lord? It is a month’s ride to the King. And once there, how will I gain entrance to see him?”

  He nodded to the dagger he had given me. “That will be your pass to the King. He will know it well, for it was his until he gifted me with it.”

  “The King gave you this?” I could not reconcile my picture of Alan the conjurer with this Alan who was now telling me that the King himself had gifted him with a jeweled dagger.

  “When you see him, tell him you have come from me. And tell him that I have failed.”

  “Failed in what, m’lord?”

  “He will know. If he wishes you to know, he will tell you.”

  “But—”

  “You butt more than a ram sensing a ewe in heat, boy!” Alan’s dark eyes flared with a sudden anger. “It is enough that you do as you are bid. Will you?”

  “Aye, m’lord. I will.”

  His expression grew kinder. He reached across the horses and dropped a hand upon my arm. “You have been a good servant. I hope that we will leave here together. But if we do not, I know that you will do as I bid.”

  I loved him then. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I dashed them angrily away with the back of my hand. “Aye, m’lord, I will.” And truly I thought that I would.

  He was satisfied. “Tell the King, then, that you have studied with me. He will find a place for you.”

  “Studied with you? I have not studied with you, m’lord.”

  “Think you not? Aye, well, the King may find differently.” He left me then with no further word, and I watched him go. He took his horse as far up the scree as he could and then left it. I saw him drop his hand beneath his cloak to loose his sword. Poor sword, and what good would it be against dragons?

  I had truly intended to obey his instruction, partly through fear and mostly through love. But I did not. When he was far from me, nearly halfway up the peak, I started to move forward. I thought I was only going for a better look, for I was loathe to stay back when I could see.

  I walked my horse up the scree, guiding him carefully at first, and then giving him his head, leaving him alone to pick his own way. We drew even with the place where Alan had left his own mount and passed it. But soon the way was too hard and I stopped. On foot I crept farther up the rocky slope. The scree had given way to hard rock, but the path, such as it was, led straight up now.

  I was an active boy, and found little difficulty scrambling for a hand- and foothold where necessary. I still think that I had thought only to see. He was out of my sight now, too far up for me to catch even a glimpse of him.

  I balanced where I was, hands clinging to a ledge above my head, feet braced against a jutting rock below. There I stood when the sound came.

  It was a horrible noise, a trumpeting, a bugling, and a hissing all at once. The air was filled with sulfurous stink, my breath caught in my throat, gagging me with fear. I trembled in every limb and would have run back the way I came, heedless of caution, but for the sound of his cry.

  It was not a cry of pain or fear, but the bellowed sound of Alan’s magic words, comm
ands in that almost-familiar language of power. The shrieking increased. The air about me throbbed with stench and power. I clutched my handhold and squeezed my eyes shut.

  I heard his voice again, and this time it was a cry of pain. I did not think, for if I had, I surely would not have done what I did. I scrambled upward again, my mind a grey blank wall, not admitting fear or pain or hope. I simply responded to Alan’s cry.

  The way twisted. There was no longer a path. I scrambled and climbed, clinging to rocks I never would have chosen for holds if I had been able to think.

  And then I saw the dragon.

  It was horrible. It was huge, and it stank like sulfur and cesspits. In the fading afternoon light, the scales of its armor reflected the golden sunlight. At its feet, small and to my eyes vulnerable, lay Alan. He did not move. Is he dead, I thought. The pain of loss ran through me.

  My eyes ran with tears and stung. I could not put up a hand to wipe them, for I was clinging with precarious balance to the edge of the long drop from the dragon’s cave.

  Venom ran from the dragon’s jaws. It dropped, hissing and steaming to the ground where Alan lay. “Oh move, my lord!” And he did, but barely and only slowly.

  The beast rose above him. It was larger than my eyes could see in one terrified glance. There are words bards use to describe dragons. There are phrases they call upon time after time. They tell of wide reaches of leathery wings, arched and clawed. They tell of a head larger than the body of a horse, of a neck muscled and scaled, thicker around than the largest tree in the forest. They tell of the stink of the flames which issue from the maw of such a beast. They have not seen a dragon.

  Had they, had they once come within sighting distance of a dragon, they would not tell of these things. They would tell, instead, in words which stuttered with fear, of the soul-chilling terror of the beast. They would tell of the stone to which their limbs turned, while their hearts and minds screamed for flight. They would tell how every purpose, good and ill, fled their hearts, blotted out by the immense shadow of a beast which should have lived only in legend.