by T.A. Barron
"By the deep gaze of Dagda, what do we have here?" The heron's hoarse squawking rose above the splatter of the stream. Still content to stand on one foot, she hopped a bit closer to the bank, never relaxing her grip on her catch.
"You be not a bird," she squawked, "though you do have some sort of wings. If you call these floppy featherless things wings! You be not a lizard, with those ears the size of holly leaves. And you be not a bat, at least no bat worthy of the name. What be you, then? Some sort of ugly insect?"
An insect? Insulted, the lizard ground his teeth angrily. Trying his best to sound imperious and terrifying—not very easy to do when imprisoned by your enemy's foot—he declared: "Actually, I am—well . . . I am an extremely dangerous . . . dragon faery! Yes, yes, a dragon faery. Capable of eating you in a single bite! Release me at once, good bird, if you value your life."
The heron clacked her beak and then, from deep in her throat, released a loud chuckle. "Whatever you be, it be something funny."
"My good bird, I am not joking! Hear me, I command you! I am merely giving you fair warning before I slaughter you without mercy." To emphasize his point, he grimaced, showing a mouthful of microscopically small teeth.
The heron laughed, so vigorously that her head seemed to bounce up and down on her hunched shoulders. "Well then, dragon faery, you be funny, yes indeed. And also," she added with a curious look in her eyes, "you be smelly. Very smelly."
Surprised, the lizard sniffed himself. Sure enough, he smelled powerfully—of basil. It wasn't just a lingering aroma, what he might expect after staying so long among those fragrant leaves. No, he smelled as if he himself were a patch of basil—as if he, too, were made from the herb. But how could that be?
The heron scrutinized him, turning her foot to view him from another angle. After a moment, she announced, "You be somewhat magical, I believe."
"Er . . . me?" asked the lizard, surprised. "You must be mistak—" Suddenly realizing the bird had given him an unexpected opening, he caught himself. "Of course I'm magical," he declared. "All extremely dangerous dragon faeries are—"
"Hush," commanded the immense bird. "By my father's feathers, I do believe you have the ability to make smells! Strong smells. A rare talent, yes indeed! One I have not encountered before. And judging from your startled look just now, it seems you be not aware of your own power."
Caught completely off guard, the lizard remained silent. Could this really be true? Or was the heron merely toying with him before making him her next meal?
"Such a waste," she said with a ruffle of her blue-tinted wings. "To have a gift and not know about it! My guess be that you produced the smell of basil to help you hide among those herbs. Consciously or not. To keep you safe—at least until a superior hunter came along,"
With that, she chuckled, her head bobbing again on her shoulders. But the lizard she clutched didn't quite see the humor, and kept quiet.
"This calls for an experiment," she squawked decisively. "If I be right—and, by the wings of the wind, I be almost always right—you can make other smells, too."
"Wait," protested her captive, still not at all sure that his basil smell was anything more than residue from the herb patch. "I'm not—"
"Therefore," she continued, ignoring him, "here be the terms. Listen up, now. Your little life depends on it. If you can produce another smell—preferably something pleasant—then I shall release you. Yes, release you! I shall set you free . . . at least for the rest of this day. If, however, you can't do anything but basil, then I shall eat you. In one gulp—a tasty little gulp, I expect. Scented with basil."
The heron chortled at her little joke, then demanded, "Do you accept the terms? Say yes, and I will grant you this chance to demonstrate your power. The threat of impending death, I find, can bring out the best in creatures. Or the worst. In any case, this be your opportunity to do something truly remarkable. Say yes, and you be spared. Say no—and it be time for supper."
To emphasize her point, she jabbed her beak into the shallows at her foot. Half a second later, she pulled out a wriggling minnow, then swallowed it whole.
What to do? The lizard's thoughts raced madly. Why in the name of Avalon did this crazy bird think be possessed magic? And even if she were somehow right, how could he possibly make that magic work?
Clack. Clack. The heron's beak tapped impatiently.
Think smelly thoughts! the lizard told himself. With all his concentration, he conjured up mental images of slimy fish eggs. Rotten apples. Piles of boar dung, crawling with maggots.
Hopefully, he sniffed the air. Nothing. Not even the smell of basil reached his nostrils.
Clack. Clack. The heron watched him, eyes narrowing.
Hurriedly, he tried other pungent ideas. He imagined a parade of moldy pears, a grove of pine trees dripping with sap, a pile of crushed beetles, some newly opened daffodils, a family of stinking skunks, and a whole field of rotten eggs.
Nothing.
Clack. Clack.
The heron's eyes strayed to the small fish swimming by her foot. Clearly, she was getting hungry. And clearly, she wouldn't wait much longer.
Harder and harder the lizard tried, picturing the smelliest things he could remember. The week-old carcass of a fallen deer. The sulfurous bubbles rising out of a hot spring. The first bush of lilacs to blossom.
Clack. Clack.
I'm running out of time. All those images, he thought ruefully, but no smells. Wait! He caught his breath. Maybe the trick was not to picture pungent things in his mind—but to smell them. Aromas, not images. Smells, not visions.
Clack. "Your time be up, regrettably." The heron shook her feathered head. "I be sad you disappointed me. So very sad. Fortunately, though, eating something always brightens my mood."
Even as her beak bent toward him, the lizard tried furiously to concentrate. Think smells! But how? He wasn't used to doing that. He wasn't even sure he could do that.
The beak approached, nearer and nearer. It started to open. Inside, all he could see was a gaping chasm of darkness.
Think like a hunter! he commanded himself. Like the heron—smelling out her prey. He tried his best to imagine how she would catch the scent of every fish before catching the fish itself. Even a big, meaty trout that might leap out of the stream, she'd probably smell first: its oily scales, its fishy breath. Then she would—
Snap. The heron's beak closed hard.
But not on the lizard. She had whirled around to clamp her beak on the fish she had smelled right behind her. And yet, to her astonishment, there wasn't any fish at all.
"What?" she squawked, turning her head to and fro. "I be sure I smelled . . ."
"A trout?" the lizard asked. "A nice juicy one, maybe?"
The heron's head spun back around. Judging from her expression, she was greatly annoyed. Rarely, if ever, had she been fooled—certainly not by someone she'd already caught. The lizard swallowed anxiously. Would she go back on her bargain? Had she never planned to keep it?
The heron's foot tightened around her prey—then abruptly released him. He fell with a splash in the reedy shallows. Quickly, he swam to shore.
"Congratulations," she declared with a flap of her broad wings. "You have an unusual life ahead, I predict. A most unusual life! Perhaps even a long one." She glared down at him. "Unless," she whispered, bending low, "you ever make the smell of a trout near me again."
The lizard stiffened. Instantly, his fishy smell vanished from the air. Still, he didn't feel entirely comfortable with the heron's beak so close to his face. She might still be thinking about the appetizing fish she'd almost eaten. In a flash, he knew what to do. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on a new smell.
"Basil," said the heron, nodding with amusement. Pulling her head back to her bony shoulders, she observed, "You have learned two important lessons today, my little mystery beast. How to use your power. And how to distract your enemies."
The lizard stared up at her, his green eyes aglow. "True. B
ut I disagree with one thing you said."
The heron cocked her head inquiringly.
"You may have been my hunter," he explained. "But really . . . you're not my enemy."
The heron waded a bit closer. "You could be right, little one. At least for today. Tell me now, before we part. What is your name?"
The lizard blinked, suddenly aware that he didn't have a name. "I . . . I really don't know."
"Don't know?" The huge bird shook her grayish-blue wings in amazement. "Don't know your name? Well then, allow me to give you one."
With a loud clack of her beak, the heron announced: "Your name, from this moment on, shall be . . ." She paused, sniffing the air. "Basil. Yes indeed, Basil."
Warming to the idea, the lizard gave a nod. "And your name is?"
"Gullpiver," she declared. "Gullpiver, the great blue heron."
"Pleased to meet you," he replied, rearing up on his hind legs to give her a cordial bow. "And I am Basil, The extremely dangerous dragon faery."
6: MY WORLD
I learned something valuable that day—a lesson I've never forgotten. It's worth listening well to what you hear. No matter how bizarre the story . . . or how bizarre the storyteller.
YEAR OF AVALON 5
Furtively, Basil darted out of the sheltering leaves of cabbage and onto a root at the base of a towering hemlock tree. As he'd done many times before, he scurried up the root to the tree's massive trunk, where he spied his favorite hideaway, a tiny protected cavern formed by a burl in the tree's bark. Though his wings felt uncomfortably stiff, as if they were hardening right into his back, he managed to squeeze into the cavern's narrow mouth. As usual, he brought a meal with him—this time, a slightly bruised but meaty yellow mushroom he'd stolen from the den of a sleeping badger.
"He won't miss this one," said Basil, settling into a comfortable position on the cavern's smooth floor. Then he nodded, agreeing with his own remark. Conversing with himself, he'd found, could be a surprisingly pleasant pastime. And besides, with all the time he spent dodging predators, he had almost no opportunities to talk with anybody else.
"Fat old chump," Basil went on, "he could use a bit less to eat anyway."
He took a big bite of the mushroom's stem and chewed slowly, savoring the rich woodsy flavor. His eyes surveyed the dark grain of the cavern walls, glistening with hemlock resin. "Mmm, I sure do like eating in here. So quiet, restful, and alone."
Yet even as he spoke the words, he knew that they were a lie. Sure, he liked the privacy of this hidden niche. But why? Not for its restful isolation. For its safety. From outside the hemlock, this place was virtually impossible to see or sniff (thanks to the potent smell of hemlock resin he always released upon entering). The truth was, he lived alone not because he liked it—but because he feared living otherwise, out in the world inhabited by other creatures.
Taking another bite, he chewed thoughtfully. Ruefully, he wondered, Will I always live alone? Always live in hiding?
He scowled, which made his cupped ears flop over onto his snout. Shaking his head, he sent the ears back to their usual upright position. Then he did something he'd never expected to do. Something he'd never done before.
Dropping the mushroom on the cavern floor, he crawled back outside. Slowly, hesitantly, he pushed his nose out into the humid air of the forest. Then, carefully checking for anything that might like to eat a lizard—and for any signs of an angry, overweight badger—he turned and started climbing up the tree.
Cautiously, he scaled the rough ridges of the trunk. Ignoring the stiffness of his wings, which made him less flexible as a climber, he concentrated on another, more serious danger. Predators. He released his strongest hemlock smell, hoping to disguise himself, but he knew that his vibrant green body shone like a flame against the dark brown bark. His heart pounded within his ribs, drumming incessantly, for he knew this was risky. Foolishly risky. Yet still he continued to climb.
"I need to see this forest," he whispered as he worked his way higher. "Not just run through it, seeing only whatever might eat me."
He scooted around a protruding knot, trying not to think about how exposed he was to birds, snakes, magic-tongued tarantulas (who could sing their prey to sleep in seconds), and other tree-dwelling hunters. "I want to know where I live," he panted. At least I can see it—really see it—just once."
With a deft maneuver, he swung himself onto a wide branch and scurried out to its nearest cluster of needles. At the same instant he ducked into the greenery, a great horned owl swooped past, silent as a feathered cloud. But the owl kept flying; neither Basil's bright scales nor his thumping little heart had given him away.
Seconds later, Basil settled into a bowl-shaped knot on the branch. Obscured by hemlock needles, he could see much of his surroundings without being seen by others. He swung his head to and fro, taking in the rich complexity of forest life.
Not far away, on a neighboring cedar, a purple-crowned woodpecker probed for insects in the bark. A pair of squirrels leaped from one bouncing branch to the next, while a family of bright-eyed raccoons watched from their hole in a chestnut trunk. Golden-winged butterflies fluttered past, while honeybees buzzed and teams of ants marched across the roots of a plum tree heavy with fruit. A few eyes glittered that Basil didn't recognize, although a pair of ruby slits, he felt sure, belonged to a tree-climbing adder. With a start, he realized that the thickened branch of a vine-draped oak tree was actually the body of a resting puma. Her belly, swollen from a recent meal, moved slowly up and down with every breath; her feline paws occasionally swatted insects who dared to fly too close.
More than the sights, though, Basil relished all the sounds and smells. Songbirds piped, thrummed, and whistled from branches above and below. Squirrels cracked open nuts, chattering to their neighbors. Sprigs of honeyfern, newly unfurled in the morning light, shivered softly with each breeze. And as they vibrated, the ferns gave off a scent so ebullient that it tickled Basil's nose as well as his mind: Trying to stay quiet, he had to bite his tongue so he wouldn't laugh out loud. Spiderwebs smelled dank and musty, while every kind of moss or lichen released an aroma of its own—sometimes as sweet as rivertang berries, sometimes as tart as lemongrass.
Suddenly, from the branch just above him, he heard a new sound. A loud rustle of feathers, as several birds landed at once. Then came voices—rough and cacophonous.
A flock of crows, Basil concluded, seeing a flash of black wing tips through the needles. Five or six of them, maybe more.
"Giants, caawww, huge and ugly," croaked one. "Climbin' up from the mists, they were, comin' to make their new home here in the root-realms. Bigger than hillsides, each one, with mouths that could swallow a lake! Saw them myself, I did."
"Caawww, I thought all that migratin' had stopped by now! The isle of Lost Fincayra must be empty as a buzzard's brain, with all the birds and beasts movin' up to Avalon." The crow clacked his beak for emphasis. "Wish they'd stop comin' here and leave us alone."
"Where do you think you came from then, you saggy-tailed lump of coal? Everybody came here from Fincayra—all but those creatures made from the magic soil of Malóch."
"You believe that nonsense, do you? Why, not even a pack of dog faeries, stupid tongues a-waggin', would fall for that story."
Above a barrage of caws, the crow continued: "Nobody in Avalon is makin' creatures from dirt, I tell you. Nobody! Maybe Merlin, powerful wizard that he was, could do magic that big—but he ain't around no more. Gone to see that other place, far beyond the mists."
"He's comin' back, I hear," cawed a hoarse voice that, to Basil, sounded distinctly female. "When he's had enough of Earth, he'll come home to Avalon." Over the sputtering squawks of her companions, she declared, "He's got a reason to return, a very good reason."
"What, to check on the size of the tree he planted? Ca-ca-caawww! Merlin the gardener!"
"No, acorn head." She flapped her wings, waiting for the flock to quiet down before she delivered her news. Grad
ually, the crows fell silent. Even Basil, on the branch below, lifted his head so he wouldn't miss whatever she was about to reveal.
"Merlin has a mate! I know, I saw them together, just before he left. A woman with big doe eyes. Ca-ca-caawww! Named Hallia. I promise you, he's comin' back to her."
"Why?" croaked a skeptical companion. "Does she owe him money?"
"No, beetle brow!" The female crow's voice softened to a rough whisper. "He's in love."
"Merlin? In love? Caawww, no chance!"
"Caawww, I thought he was smarter 'n that."
"Just goes to prove that even a wizard can be stupid."
With that, the crows started laughing, so rancorously that their voices blended into one big cacophony. Now it was impossible to hear more than snatches of words here and there. But Basil didn't mind. He had heard enough to be enthralled.
How could he have lived for years in this forest realm—and know so little about its creatures, its magic, and its stories? And what about those other realms the crows had mentioned? Where exactly were they, and what mysteries did they hold? Would he ever get to see them, even if he couldn't fly? And if he could someday fly—a wish so ardent he could barely think about it—just where would he go? Would he hear more tales about Merlin? Was the wizard really going to return to Avalon?
All these questions and more surged through his mind like a spring flood, He listened some more to the crows overhead. They had finally gone back to gossiping. He promised to come back to this spot, as often as possible, in case they ever returned. And, in addition, he promised to find more places where he could witness more of his world—preferably without getting eaten.
