Harry whispered to himself, “Okay, fine.
“All right, all right!” he raised his voice. “Do you remember before show-and-tell that Harry was at the bottom of the cave-lake looking up at the evil dragon’s flames that had scorched the top of the lake? Harry could see the dragon, but the dragon could not see him through the cold waters. Then, Harry heard the speaker, ‘Harry, pick up the rest of the armor that you dropped on the bottom, then walk along the bottom until you come to a tunnel.’
“Harry followed the sword’s instructions and walked at least a mile before he finally managed to climb out of the huge underground lake and away from the evil dragon. Harry looked back across the lake and was startled to see the cavern-lake was lit like a landscape on a rainy, lightning-filled night. The great beast still spewed flames and dove into the water, splashing around trying to find him. Quietly, Harry continued to follow the speaker’s instructions until he came to a narrow tunnel, small enough to keep the dragon out and Harry securely tucked in.
“Harry sat down on a conveniently placed stone and thought, Now what? Do I even want to know? He placed his head against the side of the tunnel, exhausted, and closed his eyes. Soon, he felt the now familiar movement of his spirit down the dark corridors of the cave, racing toward the princess. As he approached her, he felt the need to move cautiously. He slowed down, stopping right before the entrance to the large fire-lit cavern that held her. For a few minutes he watched her, not knowing what to say. Finally, she turned toward him and spoke.
‘“I sense you there, Harry. You can come out. The dragon is not here.’
“Harry slowly walked out of the tunnel and into the light. The princess looked at him. Her face was contorted, and scaly bitterness smoldered in her eyes. When she saw his face, her own feelings slipped behind a shielded wall, and she stepped back, staring at him. Her face again reflected her feelings, only this time, she was afraid of him. Her mouth opened slightly, as if to speak, but nothing came out.
“Harry stepped closer to her, alarmed. ‘Are you all right, Sarah? What’s wrong?’
“The princess looked at him, puzzled. ‘Are you Harry? The brave boy who I’ve been talking to?’
‘“Yes, of course I’m Harry,’ he answered, a little taken aback. ‘Who else would I be?’
“She continued to stare at him, her eyes squinting skeptically. Finally, she said, ‘You have changed. You look older, much older. You seem larger, stronger, even taller. What happened to you?’
“Harry paused, thinking how to reply. The speaker whispered, ‘Be very careful, Harry, because you are not the only one changing, and you don’t know how far gone she is.’
“Harry answered the speaker, I am not good at lying.
“The sword responded, ‘Then tell her the truth. Just omit the part about the King and the hall.’
‘“I found some very special armor, Princess. It… it seems to be magical… you can’t even see it, but it protects me, even now, even here.’
“She drew close to him and looked up at him. Her eyes were wild, tired, and confused. He stared back, locking eyes with her. Then he started to feel sleepy, then dizzy. He shook his head trying to throw off the heaviness. He felt like he did the time he snuck into his father’s beer keg and gulped down several mouthfuls of the dark, foul-smelling brew. Later, Harry threw up and wouldn’t touch the stuff for years afterward,” the old man added for his audience’s sake.
Several of the mothers seated and standing around the barn gave the old man a quick nod of approval or a deliberate, unabashed smile of thanks. Sarah even attempted a slight smile, but it slid away into old sadness as her memories continued to grieve her.
“Harry felt drugged and drained. Had he not been accompanied by the speaker and protected by the armor, even in the spiritual dream state, the dragon would have captured him, but he was protected. A bolt of light shot through his mind. He heard the speaker shout, and his armor began to glow. The last thing he heard, as his mind flew back down the tunnel, was the princess’s infuriated shrieks, crying, ‘No! Noooooo!’
“Harry woke with a start. He was still in the small tunnel of the dark cave, still covered in the ancient armor, with a powerful sword giving off a dim blue light from its sheath at his side. His breath was heavy, his heart hammered away in his chest, and his cheeks were covered in hot tears.”
At this point the old man stopped his storytelling. The room was very quiet. Even the older children in the hayloft, who had scampered about throughout the story, had been caught in its spell and now slumped under the same weight of Sarah’s betrayal. No one dared to look at the dragon in the room. They were afraid to. They knew the story had to have had a good outcome, or none of them would have been in that barn listening to the old man. Every eye in the room was riveted on the old man. His eyes were fixed on the lady dragon, whose eyes were locked on his. What the people watching couldn’t hear was the conversation between the two, aided by the sword.
“I don’t have to go on with this. It’s old news, ancient history.”
“Yes, you do, my love… we talked about this before you ever began. You know that. I didn’t expect it to hurt this much, but I should have…”
“Now that you do, I can quit. I do not have to finish it. I don’t have to expose you.”
“And what about the people in this old barn who have walked that same path? Who know how it feels to betray an innocent soul? What about them? For the moment, they have been able to push those feelings aside, but we both know their guilt will not stay silent for long. It will raise its pointing finger, and if it does not find absolution, it will cause annihilation. Maybe slow self-destruction, but death, no matter what you call it. Yes, this story must be told, and you, Harry, are the only one who can tell it.”
The old man stood up and the children who had gathered around his feet moved back. Some slipped back into their seats with their parents. He looked around the room, making eye contact with every soul there. Some looked back, others couldn’t and bowed their heads. He knew what Sarah said was true. The people in this room needed hope. Some still wore the slitted eyes of the Reverend Laden Long. He knew he was the only one who could see them, but in that room, in that moment, no veils, no masks hid the mark of the beast they had worshipped. Harry also knew that as they pulled back from that evil, the mark would fade and their features return to true human. Many of these people had gathered not even knowing why they came. They were curious, yes, but they were also looking for something else. Release, absolution, restoration. They probably didn’t phrase it that way, but they were looking all the same.
Harry stepped forward, no longer just telling a children’s story. He began to speak, “I really don’t know how to tell this next part. It was a very… difficult experience. But before I do, I want you to know that the dragon you see in this old barn is not the same person that…” He groped for the words.
Sarah gave it to him in her thoughts, “Betrayed is the word you’re looking for, Harry.”
“…who betrayed me in that dark place. I hate to recall that time because, even though it was one of the most miserable and painful experiences of my life, it is over, and the woman, the dragon-lady that sits here with us now, is the love of my life. I have been separated from her for a lifetime, chained by a death curse from the dark dragon you saw perish, thanks to the amazing bravery and self-sacrifice of your fire marshal, Kenneth Linscomb. He was also Sarah’s grandfather,” he said, pointing to Sarah dragon. “Kenneth gave his life for hers. Someone once told me the value of something is determined by what one is willing to pay for it. Kenneth and his wife, Grace, thought Sarah was priceless because they laid down their lives for her.
“That doesn’t mean that what she did in another time, more than a thousand years ago, doesn’t have consequences. It does, and Sarah would be the first one to admit that. But I will be the first to say that her actions have been wiped clean. They were absolved in fire and blood and ruin. I didn’t understand how such stains
could be wiped clean. I was raised to believe that evil people, or even people who did evil things, even though they might not be completely evil, could not change. I was also raised to believe that if you did something wrong, you are the one who had to pay for it and make it right. Then I realized some things could not be made right. They were too big for the person to lift the weight of their ruin, by themselves. The law of physics tells us this is true. It says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and that truth condemned me. It also condemned Sarah. I was too weak to remove the stain and the memories of that incident, and she was too weak to forgive herself and believe she could change. Then we met someone bigger than we were, larger than any stain any willful act of betrayal could leave. We met…”
“Harry, get down!” the speaker sword screamed. Harry immediately fell to the ground as a huge inferno of burning hay and pieces of barn wood ripped through the air.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harry’s armor reacted instantly, sensing the change in heat and pressure. The blast picked him up and threw him across the room. Others were not so protected. Children and their parents, engulfed in flames, screamed in helpless fear and pain.
The friendly hay in the loft, which had comforted and given the children a luxuriant playground, now reached for them with scorching tendrils and poisonous fumes. Coughing, screaming, moans, and the very present smell of blood, now starting to bubble in the pools forming from those killed in the initial explosion, created a gory background for those trying to drag people away or crawl away themselves.
People who had been in the back of the barn raced toward the huge doors only to find they had been bolted and chained shut from the outside. Sarah rose, impervious to the flames but not the flying pieces of wood, several of which had pierced her and stuck out like porcupine spines. She pushed through the debris and burning corpses to the entrance. As she got closer, her claws came out and she hammered the old wooden doors. They broke off their ancient hinges, and people raced out, some falling and others, in their panic, stumbling over or stepping on them. Over a hundred people had gathered in that barn, and they were all converging on the only exit to escape the flames.
Harry ran the other way. He saw people lying on the floor, wounded with pieces of debris sticking out of them. Some were obviously beyond help, others were moving and crawling toward the exit, while the smoke from the explosion and the hungry flames raced toward them.
Harry picked up the bloody frame of one of his library children and grabbed the hands of a woman whose face was littered with splinters and blinded with blood. The exit had cleared, and some people were helping those who had been trampled get out. The barn had now become a smoke-filled pyre, and people were collapsing from the fumes, poisoned, with only seconds to get to the open air. The flames crackled as the wind, gusting, seemed to be drawn to it.
The screams of the wounded and the foul smell of the dead being devoured by the consuming blaze flooded Harry’s senses. He wanted to run to safety, but his heart would not let him leave any who could be saved behind. He pulled several children and their parents out, his armor protecting him from the heat. Minutes passed, and the fire trucks came screaming into the place. Harry was about to move back from the crumbling old building when he heard a cry.
The beams of the old barn were charred and weakening, but when he turned to look through his armored visor, he saw a small boy moving, hidden under one of the hay bales. He had somehow survived, insulated by several feet of grass, but he couldn’t hide any longer. Forced by the heat and fumes, he cried and tried to push free. When Harry saw him, he raced back into the flames. Sarah, who had been lying on her side, panting for breath while Jamie tried to staunch the streams of blood from a score of wounds, saw Harry run into the crumbling building and rushed after him.
Harry found the child and was futilely attempting to shield him from the flames. He looked up to see the barn ceiling start to give way. He hunched over the child to protect him with his body when a giant dragon wing spread, umbrella-like, over him. Then claws grasped him, tucking him and the boy to the great dragon body that now shielded them.
The ceiling collapsed, flames encircling them, and then the water came. Torrents of water splashed down on them through the gap in the burning roof. Harry had no time to be grateful. As the flames and water mixed into a hissing steam and the smoke curled around them, he felt his body start to tingle.
Then light covered him, and he realized he was underwater, surrounded by cool, soothing water. He looked up toward the light shining down through the surface and pushed up, swimming toward the top. His head broke through. He blinked and took a deep breath of cold air. Then he saw the shore within a few yards and swam toward it. As he did, he immediately noticed dragon Sarah was also pulling herself out of the water onto the beach.
Harry looked around for the child he had tried to save but couldn’t find him. He was about to dive back into the stream when he heard the speaker. “He is gone, Harry. You did your best, but you couldn’t save him. He is safe though, and nothing will ever hurt him again.”
Harry, breathing heavily, collapsed on the beach. He heard the movement of a very large creature he knew was Sarah draw close to him. If he could have moved, he would have, but instead he simply lay on the bank of the stream, panting, trying to get his breath back.
“Are you okay, Harry?” he heard the soft, rasping voice of his favorite dragon whisper.
“You came after me.”
“Of course I did, and do not start fussing at me. You would have done the same for me. You were doing the same for that child.”
“It was the freckle-faced boy, the little rebel,” Harry said, and then he began to weep. Heartbreak streamed out of him, scorching him with every tear. Finally, he stopped, not because he was finished grieving, but because he was asleep.
***
Harry awoke to the morning earthquake that had become lovingly familiar. Sarah was shaking him trying to get him to wake up. His eyes opened to tree branches shielding a morning sun and a gentle breeze skipping across his face. He yawned and sat up, stretching. He stood and realized he was filthy. He was covered in dried soot and ash, and with one look at the cool stream just a few feet away, he started stripping off his clothes. A giggle stopped him.
“Sarah?” He plopped down on the grass near the stream with one boot on, one off and his top armor sitting in the grass. Then he looked over his shoulder at the giant dragon that lay curled like a great wolf, her tail almost touching her face.
“Yeah…?” the smile slipping into her voice. “I thought I might ought to warn you before you plucked off all your feathers and trotted around naked.”
Harry’s face colored. “I appreciate that. Now, if you would just close your eyes, I am going to bathe in this delightful water.”
“If I were you, I would wait a moment before I dove right in.”
Harry and Sarah spoke together, “Why is that, Speaker?”
“Well, for one thing, you aren’t healed up completely from that explosion in the barn, and for another, that is a time stream. It is good to drink from, but you need to be careful to only swim in the pools along the banks. Don’t swim in the middle of it, or you might find yourself some time else. A few bends down, there are some heated pools, just so you know.”
“A time stream?” Harry said out loud. “You mean the time stream, don’t you? The same time stream Sarah drug me into on the night I rode the dark dragon? I thought this place looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it because the last time I was here, I was burned and dying. I had just ridden a dragon into the ground and was broken, in both body and mind.”
“Yep, that one, Harry, the very same.”
“I wondered if that was where we had returned,” Sarah said, “but I also thought we had died, and this was the gate to eternity.”
“You’re partially right, Sarah. You did not die, but this is a gate, just not to the afterlife. It is a gate to what was before, and eve
n to what might be. I think one of your great seers, who nobody recognized as such, called it the woods-between-the-worlds. It is a portal to many places and times. It is the first place and the last place. You can stay here for a little while as the waters, and the leaves, and the fruit of the trees are good for healing, but then you will have to make a decision. But not now. Now you should bathe, and heal, and talk, and pray. Collect your memories and your questions and be ready.”
Sarah interrupted, “Do I have to stay a dragon? Can you heal me from that now?”
“Oh, Sarah, no, you will not always be a dragon, but it is not something to heal from. It is part of your healing. For now, be content. You have a lot to learn and experience. I will return soon. Rest now.”
The days flew by quickly. They slept a lot, and laughed a lot, and were careful to stay out of the middle of the river but drank deeply from the streams that flowed from it.
One day, after a short time in the woods-between-the-worlds, Sarah asked, “Harry, are you aware that you look younger? I mean really younger! It’s like the years are shedding away. You could pass for thirty, easily.”
“I wasn’t sure, Sarah, but I had noticed my skin blotches clearing up, and that I felt wonderful and strong.”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice, and well, you are a very handsome man.”
“Thank you, my dear. Do you realize this is the longest time we have ever spent together when we knew who we were and while there was no threat of death hanging over us?”
“For a while anyway,” the sword interrupted. “Now I need to answer your questions. One of the first being, what happened in the barn? The second being, where do you go from here? Well, that kind of depends on what you think about the first answer. And the third and fourth intertwining questions are, will Sarah remain a dragon and can you two ever be together in a normal relationship?
The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set Page 22
