Mythic Transformations

by Kris Schnee

  She hurried away, glad to return to what she knew. Washer followed, seeming just as eager. She reached the stream and saw Bogatyr. The master smith was running toward her with a massive hammer in hand, saying, "Ma'am, are you all right?"

  She stared up at him. "Yes. So is Petrov."

  "Thank God. What happened? Is this about the dragons?"

  "The Count is dead. Petrov -- the guards tried to kill him, and he wouldn't back down. I could have stopped it! I could have just told them to take Washer." The dragon sniffed curiously at Bogatyr.

  The smith's hand whitened on the hammer, but he made no other move. "We have no Count? The Tsar will send us a madman, one of his idiot sons or sadistic nephews!"

  "No. Petrov is the new Count. The guards decided not to advertise that we need a replacement." She shivered.

  Bogatyr reached toward her with his free arm, but stopped. "Him, on the throne? Alexi, I... I don't think that's a good idea." He looked into the sky. "But God, what else can we do?"

  She looked at the ground and said, "I don't know."

  The smith rumbled in thought and looked at his hammer. He relaxed his grip until his hairy knuckles were no longer white. "There could be better men, but there could be much worse. What happens to us now depends on the boy."

  * * *

  For Alexi a few days passed peacefully. Petrov was in consultation with merchants, priests, miners, farmers and scholars, hardly leaving his new mansion. Then came the day when trumpets sounded and the guards came as heralds, summoning a crowd to the market square. At a request relayed by Sergei, Alexi took her dragon along.

  The square hummed with rumors. The noise grew once Alexi was in sight, giving many their first glimpse of Washer. The dragon sniffed around, tail wagging, but Alexi only felt uneasy at what her brother might be doing.

  "Welcome, friends!" said Petrov from a dais, drawing the crowd's eyes reluctantly away from Washer. He wore a retailored uniform the Count had owned, with a flame-red cape and the Count's sword. "I wish to quell any rumors. The old Count is dead, God rest his soul, and has chosen me to succeed him. Many of you know me, and word has spread of my dragon. Behold: Cinder!" At this he pulled away a sheet to reveal his dragon. The red-scaled beast reared up and sprayed fire on the white cloth, destroying it. Alexi winced. The crowd gasped.

  Petrov said, "You can see also my sister Alexi and her own dragon, with the power of water." He pointed, making Alexi look down to avoid the weight of the people's gaze. "They may not be huge and mighty yet, but they're already dangerous -- to anyone who threatens our home."

  He added, "This county will be in good hands, and safe as long as it's clear we've made an orderly transition. I've been talking with men from town and the surrounding villages about everything from rhetoric" -- he grinned and nodded to a scholar -- "to farming. This place is prosperous already, but it can be even better. We'll expand the mine and build new waterwheels. A school! A theater! This land will be the gem of the kingdom!"

  A man from the crowd laughed. "All these grand plans from a little apprentice and his pet."

  Petrov slashed one hand dismissively through the air, but his face was flushed. "Apprentice, nothing! Besides being the man chosen by His Lordship the Count, and a loyal member of the community, I -- this morning I became a master smith! That makes me eligible for guild membership, able to hold my own in trade dealings with other cities."

  Alexi blinked. Petrov, a master already? It seemed as unlikely as this town being considered a "city". She felt overwhelmed by the proclamations, and barely paid attention as Petrov brought priests of the old and new faiths to bless his reign. The people prayed dutifully. For what, she couldn't say.

  * * *

  Afterward, she approached him at the mansion's garden. "What is this about you being a master?"

  Petrov ran his hands through his hair in agitation. "Don't you start too. Boggy already yelled at me, nearly called me a liar in public. We'll make it true. I'll forge a masterpiece, starting today, and Bogatyr will give me the stupid title. It's not like I need it now anyway."

  "But you've put in all those years --"

  "Making horse-shoes! I was lucky if I got to mend a sword or sharpen an axe. I did smithing because it put a roof over my head and helped you buy your own."

  "That's all?" Alexi thought back to visiting him at the forge, seeing the grin of a boy with flame and steel at his command. That knife he'd brought on the fateful night was one he'd made by himself.

  Petrov leaned against a tree, looking to the clouds. "I liked being able to shape things, to hammer a block of metal into something new and better. But now the county is my raw material! I can pound it into anything I want! What good are fairy-tales compared to that?" He shook himself from his reverie and grinned. "Leave everything to me. Quit your washing and move to our mansion."

  Alexi said, "Quit? I can't do that. The clothes need cleaning."

  Petrov laughed. "There are other washer-women, and I'm sure your Washer can find other work. Where is that thing, anyway?"

  Alexi looked around, then remembered, "I took it home." But suddenly the air rippled and Washer was at her feet, looking puzzled. Alexi hopped in fright, then scratched Washer's muzzle to reassure herself that the beast was really there.

  Petrov was wide-eyed. "Magic, from a dragon! I shouldn't be surprised. Here -- Cinder!" He raised an arm theatrically and his own dragon appeared from nowhere, red like the forge and with ashen feet whose iron-black claws dug into the dirt. "A nice trick! All right, sister, I'm off to the smithy to earn my title." He hurried away.

  * * *

  A week later, when Alexi checked in on him at the forge, Petrov looked haggard and overjoyed. "You're just in time."

  Even from the doorway Alexi felt the furnace wind. "The masterpiece?" Washer peeked behind her, having grown to wolf-size already. The creature's scales were still a hesitant light grey resembling suds.

  Petrov led her to the smithy's main room. His dragon, Cinder, puffed steam from its nostrils, curled up with its segmented tail of red-black scales. Petrov adjusted his gloves and reached into a barrel, drawing something up from the quenching water. A sword of gleaming steel, with a blade that snaked back and forth along its length like flame or a wave. "It's called a flamberge," he said.

  "Is it usable?" Alexi asked, finding herself staring at how firelight flickered on the brilliant wet metal.

  "Of course. Wake old Boggy for me."

  She smiled. "Good luck." She went to the master smith's door and said, "Sir, he's ready!"

  Bogatyr stepped into the room, nodding to Alexi, and stood by the forge. "After all these years, do you think you're ready?"

  Petrov gave a huge smile and presented the flamberge as an offering. Bogatyr peered at it for a long time. Then he took it in one hand, dangled the massive thing between two fingers, tapped it with a nail and listened to it ring. He shut his eyes, carefully feeling each surface. Petrov waited with gritted teeth, Alexi on tiptoe. Finally Bogatyr rumbled and said, "It's a fine sword."

  "Then I pass the test!"

  "But," said the smith, "you overreached. It stretches too far, and too heavily."

  "I'm plenty strong, and I'll get stronger. Having as long a reach as possible is important."

  "Yet you put weight into this tricky twisted blade. Is it to scare people, to inflict more pain, or to cripple?"

  Petrov had panic in his eyes. "It's a good enough sword!"

  Bogatyr clapped him on the shoulder. "It is a good sword, and I'm proud of the skill you've shown. But you are not a master yet. Take your time and try again; you're close."

  "Time?" said Petrov, shaking him off. Petrov bristled. "Do you know how busy I am, how little sleep I've had?"

  "Yes." The smith turned to Alexi. "Girl: leave."

  Alexi backed away but Petrov said, "No! I want her to hear you declare me a master." When Bogatyr said nothing, Petrov seemed to relax, staring into the fire and speaking calmly. "I am the Count of Iron Crag now, and
it wouldn't do to have me be a mere apprentice at the same time. This is a problem, but it's easily fixed. By you."

  Bogatyr said, "Then I can dismiss you from your apprenticeship."

  "That's not what I'm looking to hear."

  "Boy --" said the smith.

  "Count."

  "Boy, a smith's work is sacred. I thought you knew. If you don't, then it's not just the sword that keeps you from being a master."

  Steel scraped along an anvil, and Petrov sprang at Bogatyr to hold the sword to his throat. Alexi gasped. Petrov said, "Say it! I am a master! That's all you need to do! It's just words!"

  The smith glared into Petrov's eyes. Alexi trembled. After a few seconds Bogatyr said, "I will tell anyone who asks that you are a master smith." The blade bumped his Adam's apple.

  Petrov scowled and drew the blade away. "Fine." His hand trembled as he turned aside. When he spoke again he sounded calm. "Thank you. Really. I've learned a lot from you, and now it'll be easier to earn people's respect and accomplish things that will help us all." He hurried outside, keeping his face averted.

  Alexi was left there stunned. "Why? Master Bogatyr, why did you say it?" The blade had nicked him, drawing a tiny bead of blood.

  "Because it wasn't worth dying over."

  * * *

  Men came from the nearby villages to build better waterwheels, a new design that had the water flowing from above instead of below. Alexi and Washer sometimes paused from their own work to watch the newcomers. Over the weeks, the big wooden wheels spun up, bringing a merry creaking back to the stream and allowing for a more powerful mill, and new smelters for steel. Alexi worried for Petrov but was proud at least of the change he'd already brought -- until the day when pipes belched smoke in her face.

  Alexi sputtered. Wind blew downstream from the mountains as the new smithies came to life. Grey haze made her choke and flee from the stream with a tub of just-cleaned laundry that was already stained grey with ashes. Washer sprayed her down with soap and water, then found a new trick of warm-air breath that dried her. Alexi shivered anyway, gaping at the smoke that formed a haze around her old house.

  She marched down to the Count's mansion and found more workmen crawling over it. Guards stopped her at the door.

  "What's the meaning of this?" she said. "Where's Petrov?"

  "This is going to be the new medical college," one guard said. He saw Alexi's bewildered look, and smiled. "Doctors from all over the kingdom, and students, and their money."

  The other guard said, "The Count isn't here. He's up by the mine."

  Alexi stood with her hands on her hips. "Now what? I can't do my work with the smoke in my face."

  The mansion's door opened, and Tanya appeared. "Ah, Alexi -- my lady, rather! Come inside."

  "And do what?"

  "Aren't you here to start training? A doctor is already here to teach us about ill vapors."

  "I've had enough vapors already, and I'm not a nurse."

  Tanya laughed loudly enough to startle the guards beside her. "We both are, now. The Count decided it this morning."

  "Then who will do the laundry?"

  Tanya shrugged. "Peasant women."

  "And what am I?"

  "You're a noble, milady. You're a better sort of person now. Please, come in so we can study."

  The mansion reminded her of death, and now it would be full of outsiders and sickness. Alexi stepped back, thinking. She needed a clean, well-lighted place to work, and for the moment that meant getting her brother's attention. She started walking toward the mine.

  Tanya objected. "Milady?"

  "I'm not a nurse," Alexi said.

  Tanya kept pace with her. "But the Count --"

  Washer nudged Alexi, making her stagger. Today he was nearly the size of a pony! How had she missed the extent of his growth? It had been gradual, and she'd been so distracted by her frustration with all the changes in town that she hadn't noticed her companion growing along with her worries.

  A thought struck her, and she tried hoisting herself onto the dragon's back. Alexi glared upstream at the forges, and tapped Washer's sides with her heels until the dragon squawked, uncoiled, and bounded forward. Alexi whooped and tried desperately to hang onto his shoulders, but it was all right; Washer seemed to know what to do. Together they swerved around the gardens, plunged into the chilly stream, and with a splashing leap went back out to the sunlight, past startled townsfolk. The wind whipped through Alexi's hair and dried her quickly.

  Alexi smiled fiercely as she hung on. Her town flashed by. Her town, her home, potentially a place she could help to rule and guide to prosperity. She and Washer weaved past the worst of the forges' smoke-plumes. She could work out an arrangement with Petrov to make sure his great works didn't get in anyone's way. Almost as one, she and the dragon charged upstream to the red mountains that speared the sky and gave Iron Crag its name.

  * * *

  Something was making thunder in the peaks.

  Alexi slowed Washer, patting his neck. Explosions in the mine? Her heart sped in worry for the miners until she heard another boom. It was coming from somewhere past the main mine entrance. Now she was more puzzled than afraid. She slid down from Washer and let the dragon trot ahead of her along the steep trail. After a while, a chunk of sizzling-hot rock fell into their path.

  Alexi yelped and Washer reared back, blasting it with water so that steam flew up and the rock clattered away. Another boom sounded, and then the noise stopped and Petrov hurried into view, looking down from a ledge. "You! Are you all right?"

  "What's happening?"

  He brought her to the ledge, where Cinder rested in a pit of slag and red-hot stone. "We're laying the foundations for my castle." Cinder had grown, and its iron-dark scales and ash-grey legs smoldered from effort. "Isn't he amazing? More impressive than your laundry-beast."

  Alexi's eyes narrowed and she curtseyed. "I freely acknowledge that my brother has the larger dragon. Now, what is all this about building forges upwind of my shop and telling me to be a nurse?"

  Petrov said, "It's all part of my plan. Here, look." He took her hand and pointed far below, to the growing town and the distant sight of other villages, dots on a green plain. "Everything you see here is mine. I have a duty now to improve people's lives, and that means a lot of work." Petrov turned to her with a smile on his face. "Cinder and I can't do everything that must be done. I need your help and everyone else's."

  "To do what?" said Alexi.

  Petrov waved vaguely at the valley. "Everything! With Cinder we can expand the mine and forge more and better steel. Steel means wealth. Wealth means more things for the people -- doctors, teachers, more food, better houses. The old Count sat on his ass and did nothing but let people run around living meaningless lives. I'm better. I aim to do more."

  Alexi felt torn between the thought of so much useful work getting done -- of her brother singlehandedly turning her home into the jewel of the kingdom -- and of the question she'd asked Tanya. "Who will do the laundry?"

  Petrov laughed. "That's what peasants are for! Your washing days are over. Everyone's got their role to play in my plan, and yours is better than that." He smiled at her, looking into her eyes. "You'll help people. Save lives."

  "It would have been nice if you'd asked," she groused, admitting to herself that medicine was as useful a trade as washing.

  "It doesn't matter. You'll love it." He pulled a scroll out of his jacket and tapped it against his leg. "I heard from the Tsar. I informed him of the peaceful transition, sent him presents, and told him of the dragons."

  Alexi gaped. "He won't let us keep them! Why would you tell him?"

  "He'd have learned eventually. Only this scroll came," said Petrov. "It names me Count of Iron Crag, and of Blade Forest." He pointed to the western horizon, where the mountains continued amid forest. "Baron, in total."

  "I don't understand. Did the Count there die?"

  "Not yet. The Tsar hates him, but some of his generals a
re from there and he's hesitant to replace the Count openly." Petrov shrugged. "Even the Tsar isn't all-powerful. We can do the deed for him."

  "Are you suggesting you should murder him?"

  "It won't be necessary. We'll ride there on dragon-back, and tell him to leave. He won't be stupid enough to fight us both."

  "What if he does? Petrov, you could die out there!"

  Petrov put the scroll away and looked to his dragon, seeming to take comfort in its obvious power. "I have a duty to improve things, and that means having more than one little county to work with. Come with me and we'll get this done as peacefully as possible."

  "When?"

  "Tonight. Then you can get back to your work. Leave everything to me."

  * * *

  Alexi couldn't sleep even with Washer laying against her like a bed-sized pillow. She wanted to see her home prosper, but at what cost? Petrov's ambitions, grand as they were, unnerved her. She scratched Washer's neck and murmured, "Why did you come to us? Is it destiny, or did something from fairy-land pop into being for no reason?" Washer yawned. Alexi sighed; at least Petrov knew what he was doing. He had a plan; he was driven.

  Petrov opened her door after sunset and said, "It's time."

  She led Washer outside in silence. Cinder's breath made heat-waves along Alexi's skin that made her shiver in the cold night. Petrov wore his swords and a fur-lined cloak.

  Riding dragon-back felt reassuring. With Washer at her command, she told herself, they could do no wrong. Petrov looked regal atop Cinder with his cloak flapping behind him. She could see why people heeded him and made little fuss over his ascension as Count: he was dashing, a hero out of the storybooks.

  "What are you smiling at?" said Petrov, throwing a grin of his own over one shoulder.

  Alexi hid her mouth behind one hand. "You'll be a good Count, won't you?"

  "Baron!" he said, and rode ahead.

  The moon was high when the forest parted, revealing a granite castle perched on a hill. The town below was not far different from her own: another whole peaceful community. the sight made her feel more confident in the world. It was nice to know that the realm beyond her home village wasn't a vague mass of monsters and legends, and that at least part of it was just a land of people who were like her. Petrov led her on, approaching the castle in silence.