Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  Specter grunted and reached for the boulder. He intended to grasp it but realized too late that he’d used his stub of an arm instead. Tensing his arm, he used it as a pole and vaulted the boulder. “I have fought an endless war for nearly two lifetimes. I have seen an honorable young man slain in cold blood—slain by men I counted among my friends.” He quickened his pace to keep stride with the old man and clenched his fist. He let his gaze bore into the shepherd’s eyes. “The only joy I find comes from bringing the wicked to punishment, avenging the just, and saving innocent lives. Up here—on your mountaintop—you have a vastly different perspective than I. You are surrounded by peace. You hear only the birds and the sheep. Here the world feeds you contentment and life. But the lands I have dwelled in reward physical strength and prowess, not peace. Do you now condemn me for finding joy in deeds of valor?”

  “Condemn you? No. I would not condemn you for what you have become. But . . .” The prophet led him through a small forest high on the mountain and stood in a meadow on the opposite side. Twin waterfalls gushed on either side of a cave entrance fronted by lush grass. A sheep bleated and Patient smiled. He reached down and picked up a white lamb. Holding the lamb under one arm, the shepherd pointed at the cave with his staff. “The greatest things in life, the most praiseworthy, are often the things we take for granted. And your heart will surely harden if it is continuously and only fed war and suffering.”

  Specter took a step toward the cave opening. Water dripped somewhere inside. When he took another step and squinted, mist rose from the dark interior, and a dim glow spread over the stone floor and walls, filling it. A woman emerged from the mist, coalescing in a manner that made him shudder. The Grim Reaper had formed out of night shadows in the same way. But the woman who stood before him wore a velvety gown of sun-yellow. Her green eyes sparkled as she held out her hand for his.

  He glanced at Patient and the shepherd nodded.

  As he slipped his only hand into hers and felt the smooth, soft contours of her fingers, she gazed up at him. Heat rose to his cheeks, and he tried to pull back. But her hand gripped him with animal strength, and she beckoned at the cave. “Come and observe the manner of your life. Come and partake of wisdom. Stay with me; hold on to me. Once you let go, you will fail and you will fall. Stay with me, for I am Wisdom, and I will teach you what you must know.”

  Into the rising mist she pulled him. Out of the sunlight into the cave’s dim glow he stepped. The mist clung to him, lying warm upon his skin. He didn’t dare utter a sound. The woman led him a hundred feet into the cave. Its walls rose far above him. His foot slipped on the wet gently sloping floor. He widened his stance to keep his footing, and the woman halted. She stood in his way and gazed around them. “My path is slippery, and it is easy to fall. With every step you take forward your feet threaten to slip from under you. You must walk with care to keep from hurtling past me. Once you fall, once you lose your grip on Wisdom, I am hard to find again. But consider the steps you would take before you take them. See where your path leads. For those who hold my hand cannot fall.”

  Ahead of them there appeared a man kneeling on the floor. In his hands he held a sponge, and he swept it over the wet stone floor. At first the sponge soaked up the moisture, and the man smiled as he shifted his knees to the dry floor. He looked around at the rest of the floor and his smile faded. Inches at a time he sponged the floor, but with every spot he dried, his sponge grew wetter. He wrung out the sponge, but it needed a thorough drying. The man furrowed his brow, continued his work.

  Specter looked down at Wisdom. She released her hold on his hand and swept toward the man on the floor. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Sir, come away with me.” The man shrugged her hand off and continued to sponge the floor. But the sponge, soaked as it was, spread the water rather than drying it.

  Wisdom stood and held her skirt off the floor as she stepped up to Specter. A tear rolled down her cheek. She took his hand and walked past the man, deeper into the cave.

  Specter glanced at the fellow on the floor and shook his head. What a waste of the man’s efforts. He shook his head. If this was for his own benefit—a lesson, a riddle, or an analogy—the meaning escaped him.

  Not fifty feet beyond the first, a second man appeared. He also knelt on the wet floor and sponged it. After watching him wring out his sponge for the fifth time, Specter sighed. The man was a fool, though Specter had to admire his persistence. Both of the men were fools. What a waste of their efforts.

  At that moment the man turned his face toward Specter. With a start, Specter recognized that the man on the floor was himself. Slipping and sliding, he raced back to the first man. The man was bent low to the floor, sponging away. Specter dropped in front of him, grabbed his hair, and jerked his face upward. Again his own face returned his stare. Yet the man’s frowning visage revealed no hint of recognition.

  “What is going on here? Who are you?” He stood and strode back to Wisdom’s side. “What is the meaning of this!” But Wisdom slipped her hand out of his. Sweeping to the second man’s side, she knelt beside him and spoke in his ear. Specter strained to hear.

  “Sir, will you harken to Wisdom’s call? Come away with me!” she said.

  The man stood with her, and she smiled up at him. Still holding his sponge, the man followed her out of the cave. Specter kept a short distance behind them. His mind struggled to understand what Wisdom might be teaching him.

  Wisdom and the man stepped into the blinding radiance of Yimshi’s rays. The man laid the sponge on a flat rock by the cave entrance, and Wisdom laid him in the grass. “Sleep for a time to refresh yourself.” And for a long while Specter watched his duplicate asleep in the grass. The man bore a smile, and his chest heaved with each breath of fresh air—and he had two hands. In that, at least, Specter took a small comfort. At last Wisdom roused the man. She instructed him to retrieve his sponge and wring it out. He did so, and not a single drop fell from it. “Go,” Wisdom said. “The task awaits you.” The man bowed and reentered the cave whistling a quiet melody.

  Taking Specter’s hand, Wisdom led him inside. The first man still fought with his wet sponge. When they arrived at the second man, they found him hard at work. Specter noted that this man had succeeded in drying several times the area that the first man had.

  “You now have your lesson, Specter.” Wisdom kissed his cheek and evaporated into mist. His duplicates also vanished. He frowned and climbed out of the cave.

  Patient the shepherd greeted him with a hard stare. The old man shook his head and set down his lamb. “Specter, were you able to discern Wisdom’s message?”

  “Master, I am thoroughly confused. Though I suspect you are about to reveal to me the merits of what I saw.”

  “Truly you have wandered off the enlightened path.” The prophet leaned on his shepherd’s staff and sighed. “You are the men in that cave, Specter. On the one hand, you are the man with the sopping sponge. So intent are you on destroying the wicked that you fail to see you have lost your effectiveness. The other man is the man you used to be and the man you must become again. When Wisdom comes to you and pulls you aside, you listen. When she leads you away from your task in order to strengthen you, you follow. And when she tells you to return and finish your task, you obey.”

  Shame fell over Specter’s soul. He lowered his gaze and knelt on the ground. Patient was right, as was the great white dragon. “Forgive me. I did not see.”

  “Ah, but the important thing is that you come to see again.” The prophet knelt and folded his hands. Specter stood with head bowed. Patient’s eyes closed, and a smile brightened his countenance. “Too long you have fought. For now you must leave the sponge on the rock so that it may dry. And when your usefulness is wholly restored, you will be wakened to finish your task.”

  The prophet stood and raised his foot into the air, then set it on an invisible step. Then he lifted his other foot. As if on an invisible stairway to heaven, the prophet climbed toward a distan
t cloud. “Come along, Specter. Have a little faith.”

  Specter walked over to the first invisible step and lifted his foot. At first he found no footing. Closing his eyes, he stepped again, and this time landed on something smooth and firm. Upward he climbed, eyes closed for fear of losing the trust he placed in the shepherd’s guidance. Then a wrinkled hand grabbed his stub of an arm, and he opened his eyes. The prophet and he stood on a puffy white cloud. On the distant horizon a few more clouds presented themselves. A shiver ran through his body, but the old prophet put an arm around his shoulders and pointed into the distance.

  Over the edge of their cloud he could see the mountains he had stepped off of—yet their peaks fell far below him. “This should be impossible.”

  “Impossible?” Patient laughed and spread his arms, turning in a circle. “All things are possible with God, my friend! From the mountains to the seas and even the Valley of Death, the Creator’s hand is evidenced in them all and sustains them all.”

  Specter breathed deeply. The mountain air had been fresh, but this tasted sweeter. In the distance a mountain range rose from Subterran. From the position of Yimshi in the sky he determined the mountains lay south and maybe a bit west of his location.

  With a gentle laugh, Patient embraced him and held him at arm’s length. “God be with you, my friend.”

  “But—” Specter didn’t get to finish. The distant mountain range rushed up to his cloud. Their green peaks filled the sky. Then the cloud and the prophet vaporized around him. A mountain cliff shifted under his feet, and he grabbed for a vine on the rock face. The fingers of his remaining hand missed the vine, and he flailed as he plummeted down the long cliff face. He plunged into a deep blue lake.

  The frigid water penetrated Specter’s every pore. His arms and legs cramped. Holding his breath proved unbearable, yet he held it in as he sank. Sunlight sparkled on the water’s surface. The light bent in beautiful shafts of yellow and white that dimmed in the depths around him. Unable to hold his breath any longer, he exhaled bubbles and coughed on the sharp intake of water in his lungs. He choked on it, coughed again. For a moment his lungs adapted to the water, and he breathed it as he would air. Everything darkened around him, and he closed his eyes.

  Something slimy and warm cushioned his descent. It lashed around his torso and constricted his chest, at the same time raising him out of the lake’s depths. In that moment his sight returned, and he rose out of his body to view as if from a great height. A green arm that reminded him of seaweed raised his body above the lake’s surface and carried it away from the cliff toward a sliver of sand. He floated after his body, unable to steer himself in any other direction. Several minutes passed. The arm cut its swift path to the shore, and a narrow beach grew from the sliver of sand. A lush land of green field and forest spread beyond the beach.

  The arm set his body on the beach and slid into the lake’s depths. The joyous sound of laughter filled the forest, and a host of children danced from the trees. Their hands raised to the sky, the children circled his body. He noted that most of them had dark skin, almost black, while others were orange, green, blue, or cream-skinned. The boys wore green-and-black trousers without shirts. The girls flitted about in bright dresses of yellow, white, and pink. They waved like flowers in the wind to the movement of the grass all around them.

  Then he remembered that his body still lay unmoving on the sand. He gazed upon himself and shook his head. Death by drowning. But if he was dead, why this sense of living?

  The children swarmed around his body, and the lake’s calm surface started to swirl with such speed and force that a funnel formed at its center. The children hushed, and birdsongs filled his ears. From the forests trotted lions and lionesses. The powerful animals roared together, and the grass trembled before them as they mingled with the children. The children laughed again, and songbirds flitted from the forest, of variety and colors incredible to behold.

  As he watched the birds flying above and the children and lions filling the shore, his heart filled with awe. Yimshi settled a bit lower in the western sky, partially eclipsed by mountain peak. Glancing back at his body, he saw two little black girls kneeling beside him. “Awaken, Specter!” They giggled and pulled on his arms. Other children joined them. Together they dragged his body into the lake and then stepped back.

  The current swept his body away, carrying it around and around until it made him dizzy. A shaft of blue light shot from the whirlpool as his body entered it. He blinked. The whirlpool pulled him in too. He struggled against it but could do nothing. Water crashed over his head, and a sweet melody carried over the lake, a melody without words. And suddenly he opened his eyes—his real eyes—and stared into the faces of the children on the beach.

  He sat up, and the lake settled into a glassy calm. Some kind of miracle? He held his arms in front of his face and heaved a sigh. No, he still had only one hand.

  The children crowded him. They threw a garland of purple and gold flowers around his neck and stuck dandelions in his hair. Their smiles filled his eyes, the scent of flowers entered his nostrils, laughter sounded in his ears, and their soft hands stroked his skin. He smiled back and stood as a chickadee landed on his shoulder and twittered in his ear. And together the children sang: “Praise and glory to God! Life and blessings to his prophets! Welcome to the Mountains of Ulion—welcome!”

  The children danced and leaped on the lions’ backs. The creatures raced down the mountain toward the trees, and he followed, running as if he too were a child. Beside him, all around him, the children’s feet seemed to float inches above the ground. They floated over the forest floor, and he raced to keep up.

  He ran for hours on end. Yimshi set and the stars sparkled in the sky. Still he ran. The children’s laughter filled the mountains. They dispersed into the meadows and forests and stopped to pluck apples, pears, and oranges from trees in the valleys.

  As he darted beneath a sprawling pear tree, he plucked a piece of fruit and bit into it. A little girl giggled and reached out to him with both arms. He chuckled and lifted her with his stub of an arm. With his help, she swung her legs over his shoulders. The juicy fruit coated his tongue, and he sang an ancient hymn that he’d not remembered in a long time.

  Oh ’tis sweet to trust in God, to rejoice in his firmament

  We sing, we sing to praise—let all creation sing with us

  Oh ’tis sweet to feel his presence, to know his ordinance

  We walk, we rise in joy—let all creation rise with us

  Oh ’tis sweet to adore our God, with all creation we praise

  We laud, adore our Lord—let creation proclaim his glory!

  Bouncing the child on his shoulders, he spun around and ran through an apple grove. Deer and lions played with the children beneath the stars. There was no moon that night, but little birds with glowing yellow chests flew to the trees, providing a dim warm light as if they were large fireflies.

  Late that night, he dropped into the grass and closed his eyes. His cheeks hurt from laughing, but that did not stop him from smiling again when a star shot across the heavens.

  5

  THE DRAGON RING

  Oganna opened her bedroom door a crack. Enough to see that the house rested quiet and dark. Rose’el’s labored breathing bordered on snores in the adjacent bedroom. Something scaled brushed her bare ankle, and she reached down so that Neneila could coil around her arm. The viper’s head nuzzled her neck and she smiled. She tiptoed into the kitchen to grab a piece of dried fruit, then hastened through the living room to the outside door.

  Slipping outside, she broke into a run beneath a canopy of brilliant stars that twinkled in the warm sky. As she entered the forest, the tree leaves eclipsed the stars one by one. She held her hand in front of her and, with little effort, called upon her dragon blood. Her palm glowed bright blue, shedding light on the forest floor. She veered around trees and jumped over large stones, following the path she’d used since childhood, until she arriv
ed at Matthaliah Hollow.

  Descending into the meadow that lay before the cave, she approached the cave’s hidden entrance and sat on a boulder nearby. One glance at the sky affirmed the clarity of the night. She took off her slippers and beat them against the boulder, then set her toes in the moist grass. Suddenly the blades glowed blue where she touched them, and the glow rippled into the meadow until all of it glowed with an ethereal, magical quality.

  How well she remembered the night she’d first found Specter in this clearing. She’d been only a child, but the memory had not faded. Night after night she had visited him, hoping to ease the loneliness his vigil over her certainly entailed. And as time passed his smile had come more readily, and he kept his hood off so that they could speak face-to-face. In contrast to Uncle Ombre’s jovial nature, this man had seemed tragic. What lay in his past he’d buried deep—deeper than he’d been willing to share with her.

  For a couple of hours she waited, hoping he would return. She’d been fearful after leaving Netroth. The last she’d seen of Specter, he’d grappled with the Specter of Death, the vile being, that Grim Reaper. Together hero and villain had fallen off the great ramp to Ar’lenon Citadel—and though she’d searched the city for any sign of her valiant protector, she had found not even a trace of him. After the horrors she’d witnessed in Burloi, she chose to believe Specter survived the battle. Choosing to believe did not, however, make it reality. But Specter was not an ordinary warrior; surely he stood above his foes.

  With a long sigh, she hung her head and stroked Neneila’s head. The viper closed its eyes.

  When silence continued to fill the night, she stood. “He’s gone, Neneila. For all my childhood he was here. Now that I am grown, perhaps his task is complete.”