by Lyn Worthen
“Oh, no, dear, I’m not allowed to harm you. There’s a big difference.” The claws of his tiny back leg tapped an impatient cadence on the stone.
Heat drained from Rose’s face. This was his plan all along. He couldn’t kill her, but he could let something else do it. Everything up to this point had been a tease.
As though it were made of ice cream, the dragon scooped up three spherical stones out of the floor and rolled them toward Rose. “Can you juggle? I’ve tried but I just don’t have the hands for it.” He laughed.
Through the sound of the laughter, Rose thought she heard another sound. The dragon heard it, too, and silenced. Yes, it was the muffled sound of a man singing and beneath that, in time with her pulse, the beating of a drum. She jumped to her feet.
“They must be looking for me!”
The dragon drew his head toward the ceiling, listening. Air steamed from his protuberant nostrils. “They sing to Hasteoltoi.”
The dragon swung its head toward Rose and the massive pile of sand which had fallen from the ceiling came to life, flowing toward and around her in great sheets. In moments it had completely engulfed her and frozen in place, a dozen finger-sized holes left at the top, like a giant, stone salt-shaker.
“Stay here,” the dragon said in sugary sing-song. Then, but for the distant singing, all was quiet.
“Let me out!” she cried. She kicked her bare soles against the enclosure, bruising her heels on solid rock. She wasn’t sure if she hoped Jarvis had returned or not. She longed to escape, but feared she had been a minnow on a hook.
She screamed for help, feeling herself panic in the claustrophobic space.
Calm down. Breathe. Ancestors, help me. She searched for a peaceful memory, and her mother’s lullaby flooded her mind, mingling with the distant beat. Rose sang, just loud enough to fill the small cell with her song.
“Ahala ahalago naashá gha.
Shí naashá gha, shí naashá gha,
Shí naasha lágo hózhó la.
Shí naashá gha, shí naashá gha,
Shí naasha, ladee hózhóó lá.”
I am going in freedom.
I am going in beauty all around me.
I am going, I am going, in beauty,
It is all around me.
A tremendous crash shook her cocoon, the sound as loud as a thousand trees falling, and she braced herself with her hands. A cave in.
Light streamed brighter through her breathing holes.
“Rosie?” a voice yelled.
“Shizé’é!” Her father had come for her!
“Yes, Rosie-poo, Daddy’s here,” the dragon sang. At eye-level, a section of her rocky cell skittered away, leaving a peephole the size of her face. Dust hung in the air as sunlight streamed across massive boulders and a steep incline of rough earth leading out of the cavern. John and Jarvis stood close to one another on a smooth patch of rock. Such a landslide should have crushed the two men. The dragon had intentionally brought them down unharmed. He wanted her to see.
“It looks like he’s protected too. Ah, well, at least I won’t dither over the menu.” The dragon flapped his wings, rising until his head nearly touched an unbroken portion of the cavern, and zeroed in on Jarvis.
John began picking his way over the stones, making his way toward Rose.
“No, Dad, protect Jarvis,” she cried. “I’m okay.”
But the dragon was already poised to strike. Instead of backing down, Jarvis drew his shallow drum up like a shield in one hand, cocking the padded drumstick like a spear.
At that moment, an eagle swooped in with the sunlight, letting out a high-pitched shriek. It darted toward the dragon’s startled face, dragging sharp talons across his snout. The dragon drew back, attempting to snap the bird out of the air, but the eagle wheeled about with precision the dragon couldn’t match.
The eagle’s white head wove around the dragon like an orb of light. Determination seemed etched on its fierce brow. The way its wings manipulated the air reminded Rose of a dance, and for a moment time slowed. She thought of her mother. Though unable to picture her face, Rose remembered the shape of Irene’s strong shoulders in a fringed dress, the same yellow as the eagle’s shrewd beak. She felt her mother near.
Rose watched her father face the dragon, one leg of his jeans hitched atop his cowboy boot, hands raised in defense. Greasy and disheveled as he was, he was here. He had come for her.
Jarvis’s eyes darted around the room, compensating for the lack of audible cues. He crouched like a spring trap, and though he must have been terrified, he wore the steel face of a warrior.
In that moment, despite the danger, her heart swelled with pride. They were a band of the broken, clinging to courage. They were Diné, The People. The rays of light streaming into the cavern sparkled, shimmered, and exploded into splintered rainbows through the prism of her tears.
Rose sang.
I am going in freedom.
I am going in beauty, it is all around me.
Her father heard her song and straightened. He nodded to her, then pantomimed drumming to Jarvis, who understood and took up the rhythm. John began to dance, bouncing, spinning, and bowing to the majesty of the eagle, who continued to dive, scratch and divert.
Rose felt the dragon’s angry growl resonate through the rock. She sang louder. Simultaneously, the beat from Jarvis’s drum became more insistent, and her father danced with the intensity and deftness of a younger man, back rippling as his arms and chin dipped and released. Rose closed her eyes, singing at full voice, and felt a thrill shoot through her, expansive and grand, her heart tethered to that of her father, of Jarvis, and of the shrieking eagle. Her stone cage meant nothing. She was song, beat, dance, flight. Confidence bolstered her voice, veins thrumming with a flourishing power.
I am going in freedom, it is all around me.
Her stone casing cracked, spider-web lines racing through its surface, until it crumbled around her in a shower of pebbles and dust.
“Ná’áshó’iitsoh, you do not belong on this land,” Rose shouted. Her chest swelled, fear cast aside. As she spoke, an arrow of light angled in from the open ceiling, bearing down on the dragon, who recoiled in its brilliance. The eagle turned away, landing on a rock near John and Jarvis.
In the bright shaft of light, the dragon writhed and hissed, its form gradually shrinking, shrinking, until it was no larger than a rattlesnake.
Rose scrambled over the boulders and rocky soil to her companions, and the four of them gathered, forming a square around the serpent. But for the minuscule feathers tufting its neck, it looked like a common snake. John pulled a pocket knife from his jeans and opened the blade.
“There is passage, or there is termination,” Rose said. “You choose.”
“I choose passage,” said the floating voice.
“Leave these lands and don’t come back.”
The snake turned away, slinking toward the far wall where a small hole was forming, dissolving as if by acid. Just before he ducked into it, the snake pulled around and said, “You forgot to say that nothing is ever safe!” With a flick of his tail, the stone beneath their feet softened like pudding, causing them to sink up to their ankles. Just as quickly, the stone solidified, locking the three humans in place.
In a flash, the snake skittered up to the rocks where Jarvis stood, trapped, and opened his fanged mouth wide.
Without hesitation, Rose snatched the pocket knife from her father’s hand and flung it. The blade pierced the serpent’s tail, but deflected off the rock beneath it. With the blade still protruding from the scaly skin, the handle fell inert to the side, dragging in the sand.
The snake glared at her, raising his head. “Hasteoltoi may have weakened me, but I cannot be destroyed. I am more cunning, more powerf—”
The eagle’s sharp talons snatched the snake and yanked him away. The three watched his long body curl and uncurl uselessly as the hunter carried its prey out of the cave and into the realm of Father Sky.
# # #
The three sat in stunned silence for a moment before John turned his chin to the heavens and laughed.
“I will be damned!” he said. “She really came through.”
Rose could only stare. She couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her father laugh. The brightness of his smile shed several years from his face.
But there was still the problem of their trapped feet. From where she stood, Rose saw a small parcel of sky, light blue tinged with the golden haze of impending sunset. She felt panicked that she couldn’t wiggle her toes.
“Who came through?”
“Jarvis found me sulking in the bar. I thought he was crazy until he got to the part where the dragon couldn’t hurt you. I knew right then. We drove out here like bats out of hell. We prayed and we sang, and she came through. By god, she came through. She turned Ná’áshó’iitsoh into a foe we could defeat.”
“Who came through, Dad?” She glanced at poor Jarvis, situated behind John where he couldn’t read his lips.
John crossed his arms over his chest, his voice turning solemn. “On my first hunt, I dreamt of Hasteoltoi, the goddess of the hunt. In the dream, an eagle watched over me and we hunted together, but the eagle was struck by lightning and fell dead at my feet. Hasteoltoi told me that if I would let her have the eagle, my blood would be protected from the serpent, and I agreed.”
John’s face crumpled. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand she would take my Irene. I would take all the bad luck, all the curses, to bring her back.”
Rose reached over to touch his arm, but couldn’t quite reach.
“Your promise saved our lives.”
John looked up at her. “You look so much like her, your mother, do you know? You’re the same age now that she was when I fell in love with her. Every time I look at you…” John cradled his brow in one hand, gasping through sobs. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
“Shizé’é, it’s not your fault. She got cancer.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “But Dad, I’m still here. Why didn’t you love me?”
John buried his face in his elbow and cried with abandon. Finally, he said, “I do love you. I just got so lost.”
“Me too, Dad.”
A loud concussion broke the quiet moment. Jarvis had found a large rock and begun banging it at his feet, pounding away until his shackle broke free in jagged shards.
# # #
By the time the trio had freed themselves and hiked the steep incline back to the surface, the sun had melted into the horizon, dazzling the landscape with a red glow. Now that the danger was over, Jarvis allowed himself to feel the ache in his hands and feet. His Adidas were destroyed, one toe almost certainly broken. He hoped everything that had happened would make more sense when Rose filled in the blank spots, then decided, nah, it would never make sense.
He felt Rose tap his shoulder and turned to face her.
“You came back for me,” she said.
“Well, yeah,” was all he could manage. He looked down at her bare feet. They were pretty banged up, scraped and bleeding. She had been so brave while he and John had chiseled away her captivity, even though she had no shoes to protect her. John had carried her most of the way up.
“What’s that?” she asked, and pointed. A few yards away sat the small boulder the two had leaned on while drinking at the spring, which felt like ages ago. There was no spring there now.
Jarvis carried Rose piggy-back for a closer look. In the spot where the fountain had been stood a small bush, lush with deep red blooms.
“Roses,” he said, smiling. She climbed from his back and bent down for a closer look, her brown eyes wide and shining. Jarvis looked back to see John watching them from the entrance to the cave, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops.
As Rose stood from her crouch, she lost her balance, almost falling into the thorny bush, but Jarvis caught her arm and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms tight around him, and it was the most exciting thing that had happened to him all day.
“I got you,” he whispered. “I always got you.”
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Angela (Angie) Penrose lives in Seattle with her husband, seven computers, and about ten thousand books. She's been writing science fiction and fantasy since she was a kid, and has had fantasy stories published in Fiction River, The Year's Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016, and four of the Valdemar anthologies. Find information on all her stories at http://angelapenrosewriter.blogspot.com
About this story, Angie says: “I have always liked the idea of intelligent dragons. And if they’re intelligent, then they’d likely have families, and a culture (maybe more than one?) and their own history and customs. To me, the ravening monster terrorizing the countryside is much less interesting than a dragon who has his (or her) own goals and problems, and a family and teachers to complicate things.”
There is an old saying about our personality being reflected in the things we surround ourselves with – and why shouldn’t a dragon be just as choosy about what they add to their hoard?
A Dragon’s Hoard
Angela Penrose
Loreth finished devouring her snack – a tender haunch of goat – and was trying to decide whether to go back to her book or stretch her wings with a quick flight when her mother came soaring in to land in the broad forecourt in front of their family cavern.
“Loreth, you’re here,” she said. “Good, I don’t have to hunt for you. The falls have thawed – it’s Hoard Day.”
Loreth barely prevented herself from squealing. She forced her ears to stay still while she said, “That’s excellent news, Mother,” but inside she was bouncing around just like her little brother Brathell.
Her mother gave her a toothy smile, and probably knew exactly how hard she was struggling to act like an adult.
She had to, though – today she’d become an adult. She was a hundred and twenty-eight years old, and it was time for her to begin collecting her adult hoard.
“Should we go to the falls now, or do you want to go later?” she asked, thinking, Now, now, now… The Snowplunge Falls were the traditional starting point for each new adult dragon’s first Hoard Search. Loreth wanted to go right away.
And in a way, she didn’t. This was it, time to leave the cave of her childhood. When she got back from her search, she’d be an adult, completely, in the eyes of everyone she knew. She already had a new cave chosen – her mother had helped her, pointing out things Loreth wouldn’t have thought of, like a healthy glowmoss colony already established, and an upward slope from the entrance before the rest of the cave sloped down into the mountain, so that rain and such wouldn’t get in.
Loreth wanted to have her own cave, but she didn’t want to leave her mother’s cave. She couldn’t have both. She really wanted to move out, but still… She’d never admit it to her mother, but she was nervous. What if she made stupid mistakes? She wouldn’t have the excuse of being a child anymore.
“We’ll go in a moment.” Her mother said. “You’ve packed up your child hoard?”
“Of course! I have almost everything packed to move. I’m ready, I promise!”
“I’m sure you are. Sit with me a moment.”
Loreth huffed out just a tiny puff of smoke, and settled down on the warm stone beside her mother. You’re an adult now, she thought. You can control yourself.
“Do you know why the search for the first item of your adult hoard starts at the falls?”
“It’s traditional,” said Loreth.
“Yes, but why?”
“I don’t know. It just is. Like always holding a mating rite at the spring equinox – we just do.”
“We mate at the spring equinox so the egg will hatch the following spring, when there’s plenty of game,” said her mother.
“There’s always food, though,” said Loreth. “We can feed a baby all year. We have to.”
“We can now,” said her mother. “In ancien
t times, we weren’t always so fortunate.”
“Oh,” said Loreth. “I knew that, but didn’t think about it.” It was interesting, but didn’t seem relevant to Hoard Day.
“And there’s a reason we begin our first hoard search at the falls. Before you begin collecting your adult hoard, you need to rid yourself of your child’s hoard.”
“Rid? You mean I have to give it to Brathell?”
“No, dearest. You need to take your child’s hoard to the top of the falls and throw each piece off. That’s why we wait until the falls are flowing, so the water will carry things away.”
“What?” Loreth felt her brain stutter, just a little. “But why? I mean… why?”
She thought of her hoard, each item with memories attached. They were just little things, the sorts of things a child could find within the hanging valley where they lived, and on the occasional trips with her mother to visit her father, or other family and friends. Little things collected from safe, civilized places. None of it was terribly valuable, but she had a huge salt crystal, and a petrified nut, and a piece of shiny rock that flaked into fine sheets that shimmered in the sun. She had a goat skull with three horns that all the other young dragons had envied.
She’d collected each one, and more, and she’d had them a long time.
Her mother leaned forward and brushed her cheek against Loreth’s She felt the warm, smooth scales burnishing hers. It was comfort, but it wasn’t helping.
“Why do I have to throw it all away?” She pulled her head back, her neck tight and curling in retreat, and glared at her mother.
“Do you know what makes a drake different from a wild dragon?”
Loreth’s brain tripped again at the irrelevant question. She knew her mother would be stubborn about leading them down the path she’d chosen, though, so she said, “They’re animals. They’re wild and vicious. You can’t reason with a wild dragon – they don’t even have language.”
“It’s true they have no language. They can reason somewhat, but as an animal does. They can solve simple problems. They’re vicious when hunting or when they feel threatened. But so are we. No, the difference between us drakes and the wild dragons is that we can control our animal instincts.”