Dragon Talker

by Anderson, Steve

  Looking around, he saw a black, tarlike substance both flecked and smeared on leaves and a few small puddles of the substance on the ground. Burning tar had been used in castle defense for as long as Winderall could remember, and he had seen enough of it at Perante’s castle to know that, while looking a lot like it, this material wasn’t it. It didn’t have that same sharp smell, and it was brittle to his touch.

  Hearing a rustle behind him, he turned to see the dog carefully, slowly, coming through the woods behind him. The dog shook with each step, one more indicator that a dragon had been in the area, but it kept coming. Winderall kneeled down and praised the dog, “You aren’t so timid, after all. Come here. I think you’ve earned a collar.”

  He looked around for some Kudzu or other vines as the dog reached him and sat down. Spotting some, he ordered the shaking dog to stay as he went and broke off a two foot section of vine. He wrapped it around itself, making a hoop just big enough to fit over the dog’s head. Before he put it on, he placed a calming spell on the makeshift collar. He scratched the dog behind the ear and put it over the dog’s head and around its neck, saying, “This ought to help.”

  It did. Immediately, the dog stopped shaking. Its tail, which had been between its legs, raised slightly. No simple charm was going to take away all the anxiety a dog felt in the clear presence of a dragon, though. The dog was calm enough to start sniffing around.

  “Good,” Winderall approved, “let me know if you find anything.” Winderall began his own investigation. He kept asking himself, why here? As far as he could tell, this was a forest like any other. He looked up at the tree tops but, besides the ones that were missing from the crash, they looked normal. There weren’t any knocked down trees in any other direction, so the dragon must have been able to fly off after crashing.

  He felt a presence at his feet and looked down to see the dog sitting in front of him with a boot hanging from its mouth. “That’s interesting,” he said, taking from the dog. “Good job. Keep this up and we’ll have a name for you in no time.”

  He turned the boot around in his hands. It was well constructed. The leather was high quality, just like the stitching. It was obviously the boot of someone with some wealth. It felt oddly heavy. He shook it and heard and felt light thuds of something inside bouncing off the sides. He looked down at the dog, “Is that what I think it is?”

  The dog didn’t reply. He looked into the top of the boot and saw the top of what he assumed were the remains of a dried up foot, cut off at the ankle. Bit off, he corrected himself. “What was a wealthy person doing out in the woods by himself?”

  “Right,” he answered himself, “he wouldn’t be, unless he was a mage. So, what kind of mage would get this close to a dragon?” He ran through his mind, thinking of the stupidest mages he knew, none of which were stupid enough to do that.

  If it isn’t stupidity, he thought, it must be pride. He went through that list. Perante, who was first on it, was back at the castle. He shook the boot, “Talk to me, you arrogant fool.” The dog stared at him, looking confused. “What,” he said, “haven’t you ever seen someone talk to a foot in a shoe before?”

  There was magic he could use to find out, but he wanted to see if he could reason it through, first. He worked hard to use magic as a tool, not a crutch. Thinking out loud, something he did a lot when he was in the woods, he said, “Perante, but not him. I’d know. I’d feel it if I was holding his foot. Tassaran is a prideful fool, but this is not the boot of a fat man.”

  He turned the boot around in his hand, looking for anything that might give him some insight. “Wensala has the pride enough, and that skin tough as iron. Maybe. Marcus, oh Marcus. Prideful stupidity. He’s definitely a top candidate. Who else?”

  He had been walking in a small circle as he spoke. Stopping, he said, “or it could be someone I don’t know. A mage keeping a low profile? That’s possible, but a dead end.” He started walking again. “Mubara?” He thought about the few conversations he had had with him, which always inevitably turned to the superiority of mages and the inevitable rise of a mage with god-like powers who would destroy all the dragons and unite every kingdom. And every time he said it, there was that undeniable feel that Mubara thought he might be that one mage. “Definitely has the pride.” Winderall was used to the excessive pride of other mages, but Mubara always irritated him more than most. “I bet it’s Mubara.”

  He set the boot down on the ground. He asked the dog, “How are you doing?” Its tail wagged.

  “I’m going to do some magic, so I need you to go lay down by that tree and stay out of the way.” He pointed at a tree about fifteen feet away from where he was standing. The dog had the vine collar with a calming spell, but he did not want to stress the dog out if it wasn’t necessary or valuable. Just being in the vicinity of this place was enough testing for the dog today.

  While most trees were still clinging to a few of their remaining leaves, the crash covered the area in dried out leaves and branches. Kneeling down by the shoe, he grabbed a handful of leaves. He crumpled them in his hand, turning them into bits and powder. Quietly, he murmured a replicating chant three times before emptying his hand into the top of the boot. He stood up and stepped back as the leaves on the ground started to swirl around the boot.

  The dog started to head farther into the woods as the leaves started moving. Winderall called, “Stay. It’s just leaves. I think you can handle it, Chicken.” The dog stopped moving and Winderall knew he had found a name for the dog. The leaves picked up speed, rising from the ground as they did so. The force was strong enough to pick twigs up into the air and move branches on the ground. Soon, leaves, twigs, and branches were circling the boot like a cyclone. The mass rose until it was almost six feet high.

  The branches and twigs were the first to move in towards the boot. They took the place of bones, building up a wooden skeleton from the boot up. As soon as the wooden bones began to take shape, vines wrapped around them, simulating muscle, followed by leaves flying in, covering the bones like skin. Winderall watched the calves take leafy shape even as the branches flew in and formed femurs.

  Once Chicken realized that everything was moving towards the center of the clearing and not at him, he sat down, helped by the calming effect of his collar. His head cocked to the side as he watched the human shape take form. The complicated shapes of the hips were formed by pieces of bark. Chips of heartwood from the tree formed a beating heart, hovering over an empty space soon filled with tree-built anatomy, all covered with a motley, leafy skin.

  The chest, followed by arms, quickly followed. Two stones were pulled from their resting places on the ground to form eyes as the skull took shape. The wooden man stood, swaying slightly, like a tree in the breeze. Its stone eyes seemed to follow Winderall as he moved around the figure. “You are not Mubara, that’s for sure.” Mubara was strong, barrel chested. This man, while not weak, was by no means broad in the chest.

  No, he was wrong in his first guess, but he knew who it was now. Before naming the person in front of him, which would end the spell, assuming he had the right name, Winderall marveled at the complexity of the figure before him. In the past, he had only used the spell on clothing left by a person. In those cases, the details were less distinct, giving a general outline of the person and his or her features. This time, using a part of the actual body gave incredible detail. Winderall could even see the outline of the figure’s fingernails.

  “Incredible,” he said in wonder of the power of magic. “And the final test,” he said before shouting, “Marcus!” The figure immediately collapsed. The stones were the first to hit the ground, followed by the branches, twigs, and then, finally, the leaves fluttered down in silence, forming a small pile of tree debris.

  “That wasn’t a complete failure,” Winderall said to himself. He had hoped that he might be able to get the wooden Marcus to speak, but the fact he attempted it with a leftover foot instead of a complete body made that hope on the extremely op
timistic side. He figured he knew most of what the body would have told him: Perante sent him to check out the village and he found a dragon, which subsequently ate him.

  As much as Winderall wanted to side with any human eaten by a dragon, he couldn’t muster up much sympathy for Marcus, an arrogant mage in a world of arrogant mages. He wondered if anyone would miss him. “Probably not,” he said, “but, for me…you’d miss me, wouldn’t you, Chicken?”

  The dog had been making his way towards Winderall, making a large circle around the pile of sticks and leaves. His tail wagged at the attention.

  “Of course you will. Sit with me. We will ponder.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the piece of wood he found in the village, still wrapped in the shirt. The knocked-down trees meant there was plenty of light where he was sitting. “Let’s see if I can make any sense of this.”

  He unwrapped the shirt as Chicken sat next to him, lying at his side with his head down on the ground. Winderall scratched his head absently with his right hand as he held the piece of wood with his left. He didn’t see anything new. A crude dragon was still scratched on the top of the board with hundreds of scratches under it. He turned it 90 degrees. The dragon was now climbing up the right side, with the scratches to its left.

  “That’s not it.” He kept turning it 90 degrees at a time. “No, I think the dragon is supposed to be on top.” He showed it to Chicken, “What do you think?”

  Chicken looked up, but only blinked at Winderall.

  “Yes, it is a mystery. What are these slashes? How many times the carver saw the dragon? That’s a lot of dragon sightings. There aren’t that many dragons in the land. There isn’t a tenth of that many dragons in the land, possibly the world. If there were…” he shuddered at the thought. “…this would be a different world. You and I would be an afternoon snack in a burning world.”

  Winderall asked himself why people carve things in the first place: toys for children, talismans for all kinds of reasons, to commemorate events. What event could this commemorate? He tried to think of all the wooden objects he had seen in his life before he realized he wasn’t holding a figure; he was holding a sign.

  Signs were simpler. Signs identified places, as in eat or sleep here. They directed people: this way to Perantium, and they warned people: this place is dangerous. He really didn’t think the first two applied. Realizing that, a chill ran through him. He held the board with both hands, asking, “What kind of warning are you?” He had another thought, “And which dragon are you?”

  Chapter 45

  Agardia had a tear in her eye as Hental left the hut, the small pack with the food for the day hung over his left shoulder. Outside, his father was chopping wood, but Tadeus stopped long enough to wink at Hental. Hental smiled and waved as he headed out to Selma’s hut. Today, Selma was sending him out with the goats alone.

  Normally, Hental didn’t pay much attention to the other villagers. Today, he walked, slowly, to Selma’s hut, with his back straight and head held high. He smiled at his fellow villagers, which made almost all of them nervous. Hental didn’t notice; he just kept on smiling.

  At Selma’s, he lasted through half a cup of tea with Selma before setting the cup down and saying, “Time to get the goats to the mountain.”

  Selma felt tired, but his enthusiasm made her smile. Usually, Hental took his time with the tea. She suspected he liked it better cool. Today wasn’t a normal day for Hental, though, and Selma understood it. “Okay, Hental. I guess it’s time for you to take your goats out.”

  Hental’s eyes grew larger as he realized she said “your” goats. His heart, beating fast all morning, beat even faster. The excitement started to turn to nervousness. Selma noticed, saying, “Who do you listen to, Hental?”

  “Nobody but you and the goats,” he answered, remembering the answer Selma taught him whenever he came to the hut with a new idea about how to herd the goats, whether it was something he came up with or heard someone else in the village talking about herding. It was a popular topic of conversation, and everyone had their own ideas about the best way to do it. Selma wasn’t interested in their opinions or ideas.

  Selma hadn’t fully recovered from being sick, and she stifled a cough before saying, “That’s right, and on your first day out, all you need to do it listen to them and you will be fine.”

  “Hey,” Hental suddenly realized Selma would be in the village all day while he was out. He knew what he did when he stayed in the village, but he wondered what Selma would do. “What are you going to do today?”

  “Maybe I’ll go find myself a boyfriend?” she winked at Hental.

  Hental laughed. “You don’t like anybody.”

  “I don’t like most people. There’re a couple men in the village who aren’t complete fools. I might find one of them.” Selma was amused by Hental’s sudden interest in her personal life. “But you have important things to be thinking of.”

  “I know, the goats.” Hental shook his head, which he did whenever he thought she was telling him something he already knew.

  “Of course, the goats, but I’m talking about your apprentice.”

  “Huh?” Hental was confused.

  “What, you think you’re going to be out there on your own every day?”

  Hental hadn’t thought about a mentee. “Yeah,” uncertainty entered his voice, “Can’t I?”

  “You can,” Selma replied, “but you don’t want to. You never want to be alone on a mountain, Hental. Mountains eat up people who wander by themselves for too long. Plus, if you don’t teach an apprentice, what happens to my goats if something happens to you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that. Great, I’m failing already.”

  Selma laughed, which turned into a cough. After the coughs subsided, she said, “Hental, you’re not failing. You’re still learning, and never stop learning. There is always another thing to learn, about your goats, the mountain, weather, your apprentice, your goats’ milk and meat, and the village.”

  “I don’t know if I can do all that.” Hental was getting overwhelmed.

  “Not all at once, Hental, not all at once. There’s so much because a lifetime is a long time for most, and you need to fill it with something. Always choose learning, Hental, and you will add to the years you get to live on this land.”

  Hental digested that one for a while, finally saying, “Is that why you’re so old?”

  “Most assuredly. I’ve walked back from the mountains at first snow of a sudden snowstorm that killed other herders, and their sheep. I sure haven’t gotten involved with some of the craziness that grabs this village once in a while.” Selma’s voice a little deeper and louder, which is when Hental knew she was trying to tell him something she thought was really important, “Never join the crowd, Hental. You lead a crowd or you avoid it; otherwise, you are giving up control of your life to people who, no matter what they say, are putting themselves before you.”

  Selma stopped talking and stared at Hental. This, Hental knew, was the sign he was to repeat what she said, showing he had listened. He said, “I know. I got it, join the crowd, avoid being a leader.”

  Selma’s eyes narrowed, causing Hental to smile, giving him away. “I know, I know. Lead or get away from a crowd. Study and keep to my own business…I have one for you.”

  Selma raised an eyebrow, Hental hadn’t made a suggestion to her in anything that wasn’t goat related. She said, “I’m listening.”

  “Keep learning new jokes, because laughing keeps you young.”

  Selma thought about the easy laughter of children. Then she thought about all the people she knew who laughed less and less as they grew older. “You know, I think you are onto something. Laughers do live longer, I think. But how do you explain my long life? Nobody is going to say ol’ Selma is a jester.”

  “That’s easy. You have the goats.” Hental was proud of himself, feeling like he was holding his own in an adult conversation.

  “That’s why I like you,
Hental, you are smart. Now, back to your apprentice. Who do you think would make a good herder, with the right training?”

  Hental rubbed his nose, something he had seen his father do when he was thinking. “I don’t know. I don’t think my friends are ready. I wouldn’t trust them with my goats. There’re a few older boys, but I don’t think they would listen to me. They’d want to take over the goats and make me the apprentice.”

  “You’re right about that. In some ways, I’m not doing you a favor giving you the trip so young, but I know you, Hental, and I know you can handle it.”

  Hental didn’t exactly beam with pride, but it did show. Selma continued, “besides, if you’re going to let other people run your life…”

  “You might as well live in a city.” Hental didn’t really know what that meant, but he’d heard Selma say it enough that he could repeat it. Apparently, in cities people where always doing things for other people, which didn’t sound too different from being a child in a village, but he trusted Selma and decided he didn’t like cities, either.

  “You are a smart boy. If there are no apparent apprentices, what do you do?”

  Hental thought about it. “Wait and watch.”

  “That’s right, unless…” she didn’t have to wait long for Hental to finish.

  “There’s lightning!” Hental felt like the smartest man in the village.

  “Good boy. Never force a job on a person who doesn’t want it or can’t do it. That’s only misery, but when there’s danger, you act with the best you got at the time.” Usually, Selma tried to teach Hental what she’d learned in life in little bits, small conversations when they were out with the goats. Now, with Hental getting ready to take over the job completely, she felt a need to review the most important lessons she’d learned over her life.