The Green Hero

by Bernard Evslin

  How did Finn carry these seeds of fire, then, without getting holes burned right through him? Well, when he dug out the seeds he went to a secret underground workshop where labor the craftsmen of the Tuatha da Danaan, those ancient gods of Ireland who have shrunk up because people ceased believing in them, but who can still do magic when necessary. They work underground, polishing gems, tanning leather for the finest boots, making daggers for kings and such. The chief tanner there became interested in Finn’s problem when it was explained to him, and fabricated a very special leather to make a pouch for the seeds of fire. The problem was to make it cold enough; to do that was needed the coldest hides in all the world. Now the crudest and coldest of all the animals is man at his worst, and the coldest part of him is his heart. So, from a storage bin the tanner drew out the heart of a miser and the heart of a tyrant and the wizened heart of a bard whom no one listened to, spun a thread of tiger sinew, mixed a paste of shark’s blood and snake spit and crocodile tears, and sewed Finn a pouch, speckled, greenish-brown, beautiful—and demonishly cold. So cold it could hold the seeds of fire, and Finn could carry them at his belt without harm.

  Finn had told this story to Kathleen over the first campfire made from the fire seed, and it was a wonder to the girl. She loved handling the pouch and watching the seed sprout its magic flame. They sat about their fire on this night then and plotted what to do. The hawk perched on Finn’s shoulder and the huge black tomcat lay in Kathleen’s lap. And their fire was the only spot of light in all that howling waste.

  “We’ve almost come to where I want to go,” said Finn. “But what to do when we get there I do not know.”

  “That sounds like a song,” said Kathleen. “A sad song.”

  “Yes, and I beg your pardon. A true hero should grow more joyous as his hour of peril approaches. But I am no true hero, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. How could I tell? You’re the only one I’ve met, true or untrue.”

  “Well, take my word for it. By nature I’m a coward. I just pretend to be brave. And sometimes the pretense wears thin. I hate fighting. I can’t bear the sight of blood. I don’t even like loud noises.”

  “What in the world are we doing here then, picking a quarrel with the frost demon himself and all his fearsome friends? Why must you pretend to be brave if you’re not?”

  “It’s a funny thing about courage. If you pretend hard enough it becomes real.”

  “Ridiculous! Why should you have to be a hero in the first place?”

  “I didn’t have much choice,” said Finn gloomily. “My father was a hero. And various uncles. And grandfathers and great-grandfathers by the bushel, stretching back to the original family of giants who bullied their way onto this island and chased smaller folk off. I was the runt of the litter. Everyone was disappointed in me, and no one expected much in the way of sword play and such. But, as it happened, I was even more contrary than I was cowardly. I decided to change myself, and went to work becoming what everyone expected me not to be. I have sought dreadful adventures, and have come through with honor. But before every battle, I’m afraid. I’m afraid right now. But maybe I’ll forget about it when the fighting starts.”

  “Are we close to fighting then?”

  “Close enough. See that giant pile of ice glimmering off yonder? That’s the end of our journey. In the side of that ice mountain is the mouth of a cave. The cave winds down to the base of the mountain, which is the granite shaft to which Lyr is chained. The mouth of that cave is the doorway to our adventure.”

  “So you mean to go down there and rescue him? Is that it?” said Kathleen.

  “Ah, I wish it were as easily done as said. You see, I haven’t told you about the dragon.”

  “What dragon?”

  “The one that stands guard over Lyr.”

  “There’s a dragon down there?”

  “There is.”

  “That’s all that’s needed to make a bad case worse.”

  “Yes. …”

  “Actually, I don’t really know what a dragon is. I’ve heard about them in the old tales, but I’ve never seen one.”

  “Well, those who have don’t usually last long enough to tell about it.”

  “Are they that bad?”

  “Worse. Imagine a lizard. … You’ve seen a lizard, haven’t you?”

  “Yes … nasty scuttling little reptiles with long tongues like springs that uncoil to catch bugs on the wing.”

  “Well, imagine a lizard grown as large as a barn, with teeth the size of plowshares, sharp as knives. And great leathery wings to fly with. All of him covered with leather scales so thick and tough he cannot be wounded by sword or spear wielded by the mightiest warrior. Now this creature has a tail half the length of his body. This tail, when he lashes it, becomes an enormous flail. He can knock over houses with it. Wreck ships. Beat a whole team of oxen flat, and smash the wagon. Yes, a dragon’s tail is the most fearsome weapon in all nature. And that’s not all. Eight legs the beast has, each of them armed with a set of ripping talons. With a single swipe of his paw he can shred an oak tree.”

  “Any other features a girl should know about?”

  “One more. And that, perhaps, the worst. His breath. It is cold, deathly cold, colder than the essence of frost. When he breathes upon a living creature, its marrow freezes. It turns to ice. This particular dragon has been seen hunting walruses. He breathes their way and petrifies them at the distance of half a mile. Turns them into blocks of ice, and then ambles up to them, and gobbles them down. That’s the creature, my dear, who is guarding Lyr down in the cave.”

  “And you think to go down there and trick the dragon in some way and strike the manacles off the sea god? All by your little self? Confess, isn’t that your clever plan?”

  “I’m not exactly by myself,” said Finn. “I have you, and you have been explaining to me for a thousand miles how formidable you are when aroused. And I have my two trusted friends, the hawk and cat. I have the sword given me by my father and the mission given me by fate.”

  “I still say it’s a mismatch,” said Kathleen.

  “When mismatched,” said Finn, “and that’s the case usually with me, for I have not yet reached my full growth, as you know—well, when facing up to a foe overwhelmingly strong, then, I’ve learned, you must use his own strength against him. That’s the secret of winning against odds.”

  “What exactly do you propose?”

  “I don’t know exactly. That’s why I’m discussing it with you. I’ll tell you what there is of my plan, and invite your opinion.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now it is clear that we alone cannot possibly vanquish the frost demon. No … it takes a god to conquer another god. Therefore, what we must do is release Lyr so that he may use his power against Vilemurk.”

  “Release Lyr, is it. That’s what I said you were after. I knew that before you started this heavy discussion. But how do you propose to do it?”

  “We know that he is manacled to the massive pillar under-earth, and that he is to be reached by entering the cave whose mouth opens out in the slope of that ice mountain yonder. We know also that he is guarded by a dragon.”

  “It is that dragon who gives me such a poor opinion of our chances,” said Kathleen. “You must admit you have painted a fearsome picture of the beast. All he has to do is breathe on us, and there we are, ice statues standing in a cave forever. And that’s the best that can happen to us.”

  “We face a battle,” said Finn. “And we have to know the worst so that we can do our best.”

  “I haven’t had an easy life,” said Kathleen. “But this worst is worse than any worst I’ve ever known.”

  “Well, now, the question is what do we do?” said Finn.

  “ ’Tis the question indeed. I’m all agog waiting for your answer.”

  “We have discussed the dragon’s powers, now we must think about his appetites, for therein may lie a weakness. For instance, what does he eat—beside
s walruses, which are not his favorite food.”

  “I can just imagine,” said Kathleen, shuddering. “He counts as delicacies, no doubt, lad and lass, and cat and hawk.”

  “No doubt. But we’d make only a mouthful for him. He needs a more substantial dish, that one. He eats seals by the hundred. Hunts whale and octopus and giant turtle. As for land creatures, he prefers oxen, and such huge viands. Here in the icy waves where game is hard to come by, his favorite meat is polar bear.”

  “Does he find them way down there at the bottom of the cave?” said Kathleen.

  “No,” said Finn. “And you have put your finger on the very thing that may give us our chance. To hunt his food he must leave off guarding Lyr and climb to the mouth of the cave, and out upon the ice. There he lies in wait until he spots a polar bear, or a pair of them, and then he dines.”

  “Stop right there!” said Kathleen.

  “What?”

  “I’m beginning to get a glimmer of your idea, and I don’t like it a bit.”

  “What don’t you like?”

  “What you’re thinking.”

  “What am I thinking?”

  “That you and I in our polar-bear cloaks and polar-bear hoods—why we look like the dragon’s favorite dish ourselves. Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”

  “You’re a clever girl.”

  “Not for long. Soon I’ll be a dead girl if I don’t look out. Dead and devoured and digested. Oh, why didn’t I stay in my father’s midden? Why did I have to leave the safety of that stinking pigpen and go husband-hunting across the river? Now look at me—a thousand miles from home and freezing cold and widowed almost before I was wed, and about to become dragon fodder. Oh, woe and wail-away!”

  “Have you done with your lamenting?”

  “Only for the moment.”

  “Well, do you want to hear the rest of my plan?”

  “Might as well. Don’t have anything better to do, and soon things will be much worse.”

  “Listen, then. In a few hours the dragon will get hungry. He will climb up out of his hole, up through the mountain, out the mouth of the cave, and onto the ice. And what will he see? Well, he will see two polar bears asleep. That’s what he’ll think he sees, for it is dark, and dragons are nearsighted anyway. So he’ll come toward these two sleeping polar bears, who will be us, of course—and we will be waiting for him.”

  “Without any eagerness whatever,” said Kathleen. “Speaking for myself, that is.”

  “All right … he’ll come up to the first one, who will be me, and open his great jaws, and prepare to dine.”

  “Must you go into all this horrible detail,” cried Kathleen. “I get the picture.”

  “Not yet you don’t. Look at this.”

  With a swift movement Finn shed his white cloak and hood, and stood in a black sealskin cape and cap. Kathleen could see only the glitter of his eyes and the shine of his smile. When he tossed his mantle on the ice, why it lay there plumply, looking for all the world like a polar bear.

  “I’ve stuffed it with feathers,” said Finn, “which the hawk has been collecting from every bird she strikes down, and which I have been saving for this purpose. Look … does it not seem like a polar bear asleep?”

  “Yes, it does. And that’s about all I can say for it.”

  “That hide will hold not only feathers,” said Finn. “When I finally doff it, it will hold something else, which the dragon will swallow down when he devours this counterfeit bear. And that something else will be this.”

  He whipped something from his belt and held it toward Kathleen. She peered at it in the firelight.

  “Your magic pouch—bearing the seeds of fire!” she cried.

  “Exactly. That is what the dragon will swallow. And, perhaps, it will give him the biggest bellyache since bellies were made.”

  “What about that second sleeping polar bear?” said Kathleen. “The one who’s me? Or am I stuffed with feathers and fire too, and hiding in the shadows in a sealskin cape—which, by the way, you haven’t given me.”

  “No,” said Finn. “It will be you crouching on the ice in your white cloak. And I have a special task for you. For the dragon will never reach you, if my plan works at all. Once he swallows the seeds of fire he should be very busy for a while. And I will deal with him, and try to control his wrath for our own purpose. And you, you will slip into the mouth of the cave and descend to the depths of the cavern, taking my sword with you. There, you will strike a blow for the shining waters of the world. You will raise my sword, which has been magically honed and can cut through any manacle—you shall wield my sword, you yourself, Kathleen ni Houlihan, too long a daughter, too soon a widow, you Kathleen, beautiful girl, brave and lovely one, who has chosen to leave the bag of bones that was her husband, and come adventuring with Finn McCool into this dire peril. Yes, you will use the sword which passed to me from my father, the great Cuhal, and you will strike the manacles off the god of the sea, and release him to resume the war against the foul-weather fiend and all his cohorts, who hold the seas in bondage and shrink the sun, and starve our folk. You will do this as I do that. Between us, if fortune smiles, and we do not blacken her smile with our own fears, between us we shall conquer.”

  Kathleen stood tall. There was a deep throb in her voice as she said:

  “By the high gods, you can charm the birds off a tree and a girl out of her judgment. I don’t know if I’m brave or foolish, but I’m with you till the death.”

  “What do I do?” said the hawk.

  “I have a task for you. You must fly high and strike well to deal with the winged mist-crones who will try to spread a fog about us to bewilder our enterprise.”

  “And I?” said the cat.

  “You will accompany Kathleen to the bottom of the cave, attending every step of her descent. You will need all your wits and claws and all the sorcerous tricks you learned from the Fish-hag to fight off the legions of frost demons that dwell in the cave and make a ferocious horde with their white leather wings and icicle teeth. Task enough for any tom.”

  “Until then I’ll take a catnap. Wake me up when it’s dragon-time.”

  Finn and Kathleen lay on the ice floe in their polar-bear capes. The uncanny night had fallen at noon, and a creeping mist had put out the few dim stars. Kathleen tried to keep perfectly still, tried to clench her jaws to keep her teeth from chattering, but she was torn by fear. She began to cry, soundlessly, without sobbing. Her tears froze and fell tinkling on the ice.

  “What’s that?” whispered Finn.

  “My tears falling. They’re frozen, and chiming when they hit.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “From fear. Aren’t you afraid? I thought you were such a coward. Why aren’t you afraid?”

  “I’ve been a coward for a long time. I know how to handle it. Now stop weeping. The dragon will grow suspicious. Sleeping polar bears don’t chime.”

  Kathleen stopped weeping, and waited for the dragon to come. Now Finn had warned her to lie there with her face hidden and not to look up. He didn’t want her to see the dragon coming. He was afraid that the sight of it would so terrify the girl that she would call out and warn the dragon before he reached Finn, and that the monster would realize that he faced enemies, would pause to blow his breath on them, freezing their marrow and turning them into blocks of ice to be devoured at his leisure. So Finn had warned Kathleen to keep her eyes down and not to look up. But she found this very difficult. She heard a scraping slithering sound, and it grew louder, as if heavy chains were being dragged across the floe. She knew that the dragon was coming out of his cave and crossing the ice toward them.

  She couldn’t help herself. She had to raise her head and look. Then she wished she hadn’t.

  What she saw at first were two strange smoldering pits, far apart, but level, growing brighter and redder as they came toward her. She couldn’t imagine what they were. But then, as the chain dragging grew heavier until the very ice tre
mbled beneath her, she realized that these smoldering pits of light were the dragon’s eyes. Then, by their light, she saw the whole terrible length of him—the huge snout full of teeth, the ridged spine, the great spiked tail. She heard its claws now scraping on the ice like enormous shovels, as the beast grew closer and closer. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She let her head fall into her hands again with a little moan.

  Then she heard a loud rasping snuffle which was its breathing, and she knew the beast was almost upon them, coming to inspect the two sleeping polar-bear shapes that were herself and Finn in their white fur mantles. She looked up again and, horror of horrors, saw its jaws gape, and snap up the white heap that lay beside her. She couldn’t believe that Finn would be quick enough to slip out of the skin, but he did. In the glare of the dragon’s eyes she saw the black shape of Finn’s body crossing her. And then, an unbelievable roar, a mind-shattering rumbling howling cry was torn from the dragon, who practically stood on his tail in agony. She didn’t dare rise to her feet. Simply curled herself into a ball and rolled away as fast as she could over the ice. She saw the dragon fall its full length, then scramble up and begin to beat its leathery wings with enormous force, and then rise into the air spouting flame like a volcano. And she knew the monster had swallowed the seeds of fire which were wrapped in the polar-bear skin, just as Finn had planned, and that there was a fire in its belly, and that it was in torment.