by Unknown
The two dragons nearby were joined by another, and then others until a dozen dragons circled in the sky above the women’s house. Claws scrabbled on the soot-blackened tiles. The snow melted away, and the water in the spring evaporated under the heat.
Jia-li raised her hands to the sky. Abruptly, the dragons fled the women’s house, the hot wind of their passage swirling about the four figures on the platform.
“Quickly.” Kseniya drew the girl toward the gate.
“No,” Jia-li said. “We don’t need to run. They won’t follow us.” The girl led her off the platform and pointed back in the direction of the wizard’s house.
A dozen dragons flew there, the house already in flames. As they watched, a figure in blue robes stumbled down the steps only to be snatched up in the claws of one of the beasts. Like birds, the dragons squabbled over their prize until they tore it to pieces.
Then they rose in the brilliant sky and flew toward the west.
“Where are they going?” Kseniya asked.
“I told them they could go home,” Jia-li said, one hand lifted to shade her eyes. “Far away, where they belong.”
Water began to trickle from the spring. Yun-qi jumped down off the platform, filled one of the pitchers waiting there, and handed it up to Kseniya. She dropped her sword and took the pitcher, giving it to Bao-yu first.
The old woman drank and then coughed. “He is dead,” she whispered.
Kseniya turned back to her. “Bao-yu?”
“The spell on me is gone. He is dead.” The old woman sat down on the singed boards of the platform and began to cry.
♦ ♦ ♦
Kseniya stood in the ruins of the broken central court, the spring breeze tugging at her hair. The wizard’s house was gone, burned to its foundations. A few beams remained to mark the location of the guard’s house, but the women’s house had fared better. Tiles broken off the roof by the dragons’ claws littered the ground, charred black.
The warm breeze carried with it the faint smell of sulfur. Kseniya turned to find its source and saw Yun-qi approaching. He came and set his arms about her, and asked, “Bad memories?”
“I only wish there was something of Anushka I could take back to our father,” she said.
“You have her daughter,” he pointed out. Jia-li came running in their direction then, her braids flying behind her. They made an odd family, gathered from the ruins of the wizard’s cruelties, but they belonged together.
“Look!” Jia-li cried. She grasped the tail of Yun-qi’s tunic and grinned up at him. “He came! I called him and he came.”
There, rising up in the air, was the native dragon. Scales of white and gold glittered in the morning light. A true dragon, master of wind and water, the creature’s long, sinuous body twisted in wingless flight. His crest and horns flared about his head.
And out of a cloudless sky, rain began to fall. Water trickled along the stones and tiles of the ruins, rinsing away the stains of soot.
“We had best go now,” Yun-qi said, “before he brings enough rain to wash away the buildings.”
Kseniya laughed and held out a hand to Jia-li. “Yes, let’s go home.”
Copyright © 2008 by J. Kathleen Cheney
PODCAST STORY
The Last Devil
Sarah L Edwards
My master was a mighty man. He slew devils with a sure hand as none other did, finding them when no other could and striking them down with a great strength. They say if he had prevailed, our land would be free of devils. I doubt this very much. Though my master was a great man, even if he had by a miracle found and killed the last devil that walked among men, surely others would have arisen from the bowels of the earth.
The master and I sought the strange ensnared she-devil, held in the grip of some enchantment of old and hidden deep among the twists and peaks they call the wolfhound crags. Yet we sought to slay not only a devil but a legend, made so by some glib-tongued prophet in ages past who said she in the mountains, when slain, would be the last of her kind.
The first gentle slopes of foothills made a barren landscape. Stone-filled earth prevented any kind of farming and the grass grew too thin to graze, except perhaps for sheep, though the legends of the wolfhounds kept most shepherds away. I had no true horror of the hounds, for we had met before and I judged them mortal creatures. Still, I had not much more wish to die by a mortal creature than a cursed one. I assured myself that the master would have caught scent of any that dared draw near, but still I kept a sharp eye.
So it was that I first saw, a half hour or more behind us, a black speck just coming up a rise as we fell behind another. When we climbed again I looked behind and saw nothing, but on the next ascent I again caught sight of the figure, no nearer and soon dropped from view, but still following our trail.
The master strode in the way he would when his thoughts were turned inward, and I concluded not to disturb him. Perhaps if left alone, the follower might find his fate in the teeth of a wolfhound without any interference of ours.
Finally, as dusk grew close as a wet fog, the master turned, his eyes bright and distant a moment before seeing my face. “Kem, we’d best bed soon.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. Dropping my voice, I said, “We’re followed.”
“Yes.” He looked up beyond me, and though the dark figure could only have been one shadow among many, even were he out of the valleys, still the master nodded. “Light a fire and warm the meat. We’ll have a visitor tonight.”
“But Master, the beasts?”
He shook his head. “They’ve not touched him, so they’ll not touch us.”
“Yes, Master.”
I built a fire of the few wood scraps we’d packed with us and propped the roast mutton over it. A seeping damp crawled over us and added to the chill of late-harvest air.
The master sat some short distance from the fire and fingered his saber, the bright-polished knife that had freed the world of a great count of devils. As he turned it over, the curving blade gleamed in the firelight, flashing like another flame. The fancywork glittered black against the shine. What the fancywork meant, whether it was words in some foreign tongue or sorcerous symbols or even a family crest, the master had never said.
Finally, he looked up and spoke into the darkness. “Join us at the fire. No need to skulk with the shadows.”
And then some shadow to my right stepped away from its brethren, into the light. It was a hunched, sour-looking man I remembered from the last settlement we’d left. He’d whispered fiercely against the devil-slayer, Saman of the Dales - my master. A fool’s hero, he’d called him, just a man with a sword who knew more of devils than any right man should. But he’d whispered only, for if my master were a fool’s hero than the land held a great quantity of fools.
“Have a meal with us,” said the master.
Without any rustle of his black cloak, the man sat near me before the fire. “I am called Candrin.”
“And I Saman, which you doubtless know.”
“Of course,” the man said, and I tensed.
The master nodded to me. “Now the meat, Kem.”
When we each held some of the warmed mutton, the master turned to Candrin. “You follow us - a weary task, I’d guess.” Underneath his voice’s warmth there was a sharpness like a saber blade.
“A weary task indeed,” Candrin said. “You wonder, why in the name of plowed earth have I tramped after you all this day? Through lands ravaged by wolfhounds, what’s more. It’s a fair thing I’ve still all my limbs.”
“It’s no wondrous thing,” said my master, all the humor gone. “You stink of disease, like a rabid cur.”
Candrin peered closer. “Indeed.”
I sniffed the air, but with a nose full of woodsmoke I could smell nothing else.
“They say you seek the she-devil,” said Candrin.
“Do they?” said the master.
“Aye, the serpent-woman trapped in crystal, high in the mountains where no man t
reads.”
“They say many a strange thing, as you surely know,” said the master.
“Do you know how to find her?”
“I’ve never failed to find those I seek. So the ale-songs say.”
The man leaned nearer. “And do you know the way to free her from her prison and drive your dagger through her heart? It’s cunning knowledge - not just any know it.”
“I know well enough.”
“The she-devil is imprisoned in such enchantments that you will fall prey yourself before you’re near enough to catch sight of her! No unstudied man—not even you, champion—could unknot that tangle. None but a devil could, or a mage. Which do you claim?” His eyes glittered in the firelight.
“The devils I’ve slain are claim enough. And you, stranger, what is your claim? You threaten and cajole all at once. Would you hinder me? Do you favor the devils?”
Candrin hunched nearer. His eyes sparked like cinders. “The devils must die, every last to the smallest hatchling still feigning to be a human babe. They curse the earth and set disease on the wind.” He spit at the ground. “It is by their sorcery that I am before you, a man set rootless by misfortune.
“But I’ve no faith you can end this devil, hero. Unless I journey with you, you and your manservant will die some tormented death in the mountains, and you’ll be mourned as one more champion too foolhardy for anyone’s good.”
The master sat back, the tension I’d seen before eased to watchfulness. “And what would you care to do about this, murmurer, meddler?”
Candrin shrugged. “I am a magician, in a small way.”
“I’ve little use for small magic.”
“You’ve use for mine.” He laughed softly. “I’m a day or so older than I might look, hero, and that’s old enough. Since devilish sorcery withered the crops of my village and the people drove me away in distrust, I’ve rooted among heroes and witches, magicians and medicine-women and lone shepherds to find the secrets of the devils. I know more of the she-devil you court than you could know if you circled her with your nose to the air for the next fifty years—if you lived that long.”
“You offer some hidden knowledge in return for journeying with us? Why not tell me now and save yourself the danger?”
Candrin shook his head. “You’ll never find your way. You need me to cast the spells. She’s encased in crystal, did you hear that, hero?”
“So the legends say.”
“You’ll need magic to break her loose before you can even think of stabbing her with that shiny knife of yours.”
My master sat back until shadows masked his eyes, the stray of his glance hidden. Candrin returned to the remains of his mutton, gnawing at it with ivories that, though somewhat yellowed, appeared too strong for the age he claimed.
The master leaned forward again and looked at me. “Kem, how do you judge his offer? Is there malice behind it, or is it only the man’s slinking ways I mistrust?”
Candrin smiled faintly, but he did not speak.
I glared towards him and said, “I cannot see his motive, Master.”
“No more can I. What say you to that, magician?”
Candrin shrugged, a long, slow sweep of the shoulders so studied as to belie the calm he pretended. “I have told you, I wish the devils dead. Perhaps she is the last, eh, as it is said? I’ve peered into deep mysteries that I might lend aid to such a quest as this, hero.” He looked the master in the eye. “I’m old enough a man for superstitions. I believe the tales. On this quest, the last will die.”
But hadn’t the master heard him in the settlement? He called him murmurer; didn’t he know what he’d said?
The master nodded. “Candrin, if you care to travel with us, you may. I warn you, any harm you intend to us will haunt you instead.”
Another shrug. “I wish only the devils to die.”
These words ought to have comforted, but something in Candrin’s voice left me so uneasy I kept watch that night while they slept each on his own side of the fire.
♦ ♦ ♦
Near dawn, cloud and fog joined in a drizzling rain, not hard but long, so that any fire we might have wished would have drowned in wet fuel before it ever drew breath. We wrapped our cloaks around us, burdens at our backs, and turned again to the mountains.
We walked until the hills we strode began nudging the foothills, which grew always steeper and stonier, with little plant growth save the rare scrub bush. We broke for a rest while the master and Candrin growled about paths and maps, just low enough that I couldn’t tell what the argument was, or even whose way we finally chose.
Candrin gradually slowed, dropping from his place just behind the master until I drew even with him.
“Tell me, Kem, why do you follow this man?”
I grunted. “A devil, sir, slew my father some years past.” It had saved me the trouble, though I doubt now I would ever have killed him myself. More likely I would fled some desolate night than repay the man the bruises and deep-cut sores he’d often given me.
Candrin’s glance flicked to me before again staring ahead. “Aye?”
“My master slew the devil.”
I had watched from among the gathered crowd. Yellow eyes, the devil had, and a hide of scales glistening black. Even when the foul thing had fully turned, its hands still grasped at the air while the twisted mouth shrieked fearful things. It would have seemed only a beast, powerful and deadly, were it not for those hands and eyes, so like a man’s but not, a living sacrilege. They gave the true dread of the thing.
“And so you offered yourself to him in gratitude?” Candrin asked.
Still stumbling and sore from my father’s last beating, I had stolen into the champion’s room at the inn the night of the slaying. I had nearly made away with the fabulous saber he had wielded when he, walking silently, drew up behind me. In one movement he wrested the blade from me and struck off the small finger of my lesser hand. Did I prefer the whole hand to follow for thievery, he asked in a voice of quiet thunder, or would I sell myself to him for the price of a finger?
I nodded. “Aye.”
Candrin hummed. “A noble tale.” There was likely a sting in his voice, but I did not notice. I was rubbing the seam of the finger where the master had joined it again with my hand. Were it not for the faint scar, none could tell I had ever lost it.
♦ ♦ ♦
In his lore Candrin knew trails that the master could not smell out for the rain, which plunged steadily to earth and to us standing in its path, lingering upon our caps and down our necks and in our boots until even the memories of dryness and warmth were faint. The earth was drenched, the stones we climbed slick, though there appeared continually less earth and more stone.
When I woke the fourth morning plagued with aches I guessed them to be from the climbing. We scrambled down into a narrow valley and mounted the heights on the far side. The way was hard, and I grew hot, though a breeze blew cool. My clothes grew sodden beneath my cloak. I was glad to sink onto a stone when we paused, for the mountains were blurring and swaying before my eyes.
“Your man has fallen to devils’ ills, champion,” Candrin said, from a great distance. “It haunts these regions, killing those who draw too near to devils’ haunts.”
“Have you a cure?”
“No, Master,” I cried, my voice thick in my throat. “Heal me yourself.” Always he had before, when I was wounded by an animal or fell foul of unclean air.
There was some murmuring, then, though I could no longer hear the words. The murmurs brought darkness.
When I awoke, the gray-veiled sun had nearly dropped below the distant peaks. My thinking seemed slow and my head ached dully, but I breathed well. “Master?”
“Kem.” Then I saw him, seated not far away. “Candrin has healed you. He is not such a charlatan as he appears.”
The mage, also nearby, hunched his shoulders a little more and said nothing to this.
“But, Master—”
“You will be
well by tomorrow, Candrin tells me, and you’ll not fall ill again. We bed here tonight.” He stood and walked away, towards the long view of valley and stone. Candrin looked as though to speak to me, but I turned on the cloak where I lay to face away.
My mouth stung bitter with some herb or potion drunk while I was ill. Before my closed eyes I saw the village healer again, the first devil the master slew after I joined him. The healer had smelled of the same bitterness, shedding it in sweat and fear as the master closed upon him against the sloping wall of a stable dug from the earth. The healer flung his gnarled hands before him, and his fingers were stained with the juices of pain-easing roots.
When the master drew his saber, the healing man shrunk into the wall, trembling, until he dropped to earth with a screeching cry that gurgled to nothing as he turned. His body lengthened, his worn leather footings bursting as his legs, now fused, spiraled behind, scaled and glistening black.
The master circled, watching the devil’s face to ready for the strike.
When it came, the master leapt aside and slashed deep across the chest. The devil howled and struck again, frenzied, and the master thrust his saber deep into the belly. As the devil writhed, the master struck off the head with a last swing of his blade.
I edged towards the prone form, for even dead the devil was fearsome. “Why should a devil be a healer, when they wish us harm?”
“Devils are foul things, and if they do not do us harm, it is not for virtue. It is only the stifling of their nature, for a time.” His voice fell lower as he spoke, and when I looked to his eyes I saw some depth of grief there that I did not understand. “They call great evil upon mankind, with a power they’ve neither wish nor will to control.”
We had gone then, collecting supplies from the village as payment and journeying towards the town where rumor called us next.
The memory seemed strange to me now, and it rolled in my mind without rest. I lay long on my cloak before sleep came again.