Chapter Four
My Books
Chapter
Five
The
dragon returned, “I think we can rest here for the night. Although
if you do not require rest?”
Brother
Aron looked around, “I'm a bit hungry. Is there a village nearby?
One you haven't eaten?”
That
evil-looking grin returned to the dragon, “There is a village a
half-day's walk south. I can take you nearby, they won't see me if I
don't want them to. I can cough up some gold for you...”
Aron
waved a hand, “Never mind. I'm not hungry anymore. I'll just find a
place to lie down.”
'You
might be right about humans, they do seem to spread quite rapidly.
Sort of like the rats that carry pestilence I into cities,' the
dragon projected the words into his mind, 'If I peek far enough into
the future, I think we might see the whole earth squirming with
crowded humans who have no room to sit down. Like maggots on a day
old carcas.'
“Enough
already,” Aron said, lying next to a tree on a pile of long grass
he had pulled from nearby, “I get it. I understand how much you
hate humans.”
Aron
closed his eyes. He wanted his mind to be as dragon-free as possible.
He could still feel the dragons presence. “Don't you ever get
tired?”
He
started to nod off before he heard the dragon thinking toward him
again. The tone was less angry and confrontational this time.
'Thousands
of years ago, humans and dragons lived in relative harmony. We shared
knowledge that humans found useful, things which have been lost to
history. We dragons were gatherers and savers of knowledge, much like
monks in your day.'
I
remember living in what you might call a castle, with my scrolls and
paintings. I remember hunting alongside humans for sea monsters and
great whales. Humans had larger ships in those days, they sailed
across oceans to new lands. That was before humans began thinking
you'd fall off the edge.'
'One
Captain named Faustus and I became friends on a long voyage around
the southern tip of the new lands. It was quite cold there, it was
there I met Asara. She was my mate. She loved her isolated kingdom on
the southern ice cap, so few humans ever wandered there and it was
not a long trip to the continent to feed on the animals there.'
'Human
society changes one way and then another. Eventually the shift came,
humans began treating us as if we were monsters. We had no part in
their politics or their wars, but we were supposed to be the
monsters. Some dragons returned to the old realm, I could not even
try to describe it in terms you might understand, most had no desire
to return. Certain that humans would come to their senses, we stayed
and hid.'
'Many
of my kind were sought out and hunted down. It's quite hard to kill a
dragon the regular way, your swords and spears can't penetrate most
of our outer skin, and we have more layers inside. They thought to
burn us, smash us, blind us and poison us. Mostly to no avail.'
The
dragon sighed, 'Eventually the humans began learning more effective
ways. Not the silly ways of the fairy tales, instead they used
sorcery. Emorald was petrified into stone, Aggus was exploded from
the inside out. I won't tell you how to do these things, of course.'
'Asara,
I found her encased in her icy castle that she had buried. They had
injured her several times as she sought to feed, she stopped trying
to hunt on the continents, for a while she survived on the seals of
the ice caps and the occasional Orca. Then humans built camps that
encircled her domain, she was wounded each time she approached.'
'We
never attacked the humans in those days, we never ate them. Even as
she slowly starved, Asara would have never thought to eat them. If
she had, she would still be alive today. She was too weak to move
much when I found her, I stayed with her for days until she breathed
her last and her body went to the other realm.'
'You
see, our bodies do not belong here and we vanish when we die. We can
also never travel in time to save one of our own, because we live
outside of normal time. When we die, we are dead to all time. I know
it sounds strange. It is what drove me to vengeance. It is what
drives me and what will drive me for all my remaining decades and
centuries.'
Meanwhile
Aron was lucid and able to understand the story. He was able to
actually see this white dragon named Asara as she withered away.
Somehow he had been brought into the mind of the dragon, he was
seeing that beasts thoughts and memories. Many places, many people,
many events were moving and taking place all around him. This dragon
had lived a long time.
Then
Aron started to pry a bit more. He wanted to learn a certain detail
but didn't dare even think of what he was looking for. Then Brother
Aron found himself on a large ship, larger than he'd ever seen. A
deck busy with men furling sails, a man in a high post yelling about
seeing a sea-monster ahead. Aron followed others to the bow of the
ship and saw the great hump of the creature rise and fall before
them, it must be almost as large as the ship.
“Thar
she blows! Prepare the pinchers!” He heard someone yell. He looked
behind him and then up to the top of the wooden island. That's where
two men controlled a large wheel, another used some long device over
his eye while a tall, balding man with gray beard yelled out, “Move
the mainmast five degrees to port! Prepare for the beast to turn!”
Behind
that man was the dragon. It was the same dragon that Aron had been
traveling with, the hated creature who devoured humans. This dragon
was laughing with the Captain, it must be Faustus, Aron realized.
The
pinchers were double-pronged harpoons. The ropes were pulled taught
and the whole ship was rocked as the sea creature moved left and
right and then dived.
“This
beast be a strong one!” Faustus laughed over the cacophony, “We
are defeating the mighty king of this sea!”
Suddenly
one of the ropes snapped, cutting a crew member in half. The ship
shifted and one side was quickly being pulled under the frothy seas.
“My
friend, I think we are in trouble!” Faustus said, “I'll have to
cut the cable.”
“No!”
The dragon declared, his wings unfurling, “I'll help!”
The
dragon lifted up into the sky and then forward towards the sea
creature. The dragon dived into the water after the monster. Then
Captain and men were still and quiet, waiting for their friend to
reappear.
Then
the monster breached the surface, for the first time Aron could see
its head. It looked like the head of a snapping turtle but with row
after row of long white sharp teeth. The dragon had dug its claws
deep into the sides of the monsters head and was ripping out its
eyes. Trying to get to the brain, no doubt.
The
struggled continued for another hour before the lifeless body was
abandoned by the dragon, more pinchers carried cables to embed into
its carcass. It sank under the waters as the ship sailed over it,
then reappeared behind the massive ship being towed.
The
dragon had been in the water again, to clean itself of the blood and
landed atop the island where the Captain and the wheel were located.
“------
has saved us and our catch once more!” The Captain declared, but
Aron hadn't quite heard the name and the crew cheered his name but it
was muffled. Aron was confused.
“You
are not permitted inside my head!” He heard a loud voice growl and
then Aron felt as if he had been thrown bodily back to reality. He
awoke with a start near the tree, on the other side of the dying fire
he could see the great hulk that was the dragon. It opened one eye.
'Stay
out.' it projected.
------ Chapter Six
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