Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan

  “King Takla,” she said. “You must set my daughter free.”

  Takla studied the woman. This woman was older than his wife, but just as beautiful. The same fair features, the same piercing blue eyes, the same beautiful body.

  “Your daughter is my wife and the mother of my son,” he said.

  “I will reward you handsomely if you let her go,” said the woman. She held out a silver hunting horn. “Release my daughter and sound the horn—and I will come and grant you a wish. Three times I will come when the horn is sounded and three wishes I will grant.” She held the instrument up so that the king could admire its fine workmanship and contemplate what wishes he might make.

  Takla studied the horn and considered the woman’s offer. He had, over the passing year, grown weary of his wife’s unsmiling silence. Yes, she was beautiful, but he had begun to admire one of his wife’s ladies in waiting, a fiery beauty with auburn hair and dark brown eyes. If he accepted the ice woman’s offer, his wife would return to her people, leaving him free to marry again. With the ice woman’s help, he could become more powerful.

  Takla smiled and took the horn from the woman’s hand. She stepped aside and he returned to his castle.

  He took his wife’s white shawl from the trunk where it had been hidden for the past year. When he entered his wife’s chambers, she was suckling his infant son. She saw the shawl in his hands and her blue eyes widened. She handed the baby to her lady in waiting, the beauty who had captured the king’s attention.

  “What have you brought me?” the king’s wife asked softly.

  “Your mother gave me a gift.” The king lifted the horn. “Three wishes will be mine, in exchange for one wish of hers. Her wish is that I set you free.”

  The king’s wife took the shawl from his hands and wrapped it around her shoulders. Without a word, she left the room, running through the corridor, down the stairs, and out to the glacier. She was never seen again.

  Takla smiled at the lady in waiting, then kissed his son on the forehead. Since the lady held his son cradled in her arms, bestowing this sign of fatherly affection afforded the king an opportunity to admire her bosom.

  Filled with joy and thoughts of continuing power, Takla took the hunting horn and left the castle, climbing to a rock outcropping that overlooked the glacier, the castle, the pass, and the valley.

  The Sun was dipping toward the horizon in the west. Takla looked out over his kingdom and thought of his first wish.

  He put the horn to his lips and blew. A blue light flickered in the glacier below, then the ice woman stood before him. “What is your wish?” she asked.

  “I wish that I may remain above all others as I am now and that my reign will last as long as the stones of the mountain.”

  The ice woman smiled and lifted her hand. The silver horn fell from the king’s hand as a transformation took place. The king became stone, a royal statue gazing over the kingdom.

  “As you wish, you will stay here, above all others,” the ice woman said. “Your reign will last as long as the stones of the mountain. Until the wind and the weather wear you away, you will reign over this place.”

  Among the mountain people, there is a saying. “Like a gift of the ice women,” they say about presents that end up costing the recipient dearly. It is best not to meddle in magical matters. One must not trust a gift of the ice women.

  I had just reached the end of the story when the wind blew the tavern door open. At the time, I thought that was a stroke of good luck; the blast of cold air made my listeners shiver and appreciate the story all the more. “A gift of the ice women,” I said, and the crowd laughed.

  I passed among the shepherds, gathering coins from those who had enjoyed the tale. When I walked near the kitchen door, I saw that Sarasri was frowning. She spoke to me as I passed. “That’s not a good tale to tell so close to the glacier. You’d best keep your shutters closed tonight. The ice women won’t like it that you’re talking about them.”

  I was a humble storyteller, far beneath the notice of magical creatures. I didn’t think that the ice women would concern themselves with my doings. Still, I followed Sarasri’s advice that night. I closed the shutters—not to keep out the ice women, but rather to keep out the cold. Unfortunately the wooden shutters were warped. Though I closed them as tightly as I could, a cold draft blew through the gap between them.

  I did not sleep well. I could hear the glacier groaning and creaking as the ice shifted and moved. I was glad when the first light of dawn crept through the gap in the shutters, casting a bright line on my mother, who slept soundly beside me.

  Quietly, I dressed and went down to the street. The weather had grown colder and the rocky paths were slick with frost. At a baker’s shop I bought sweet buns for our breakfast. The buns were warm against my hands as I carried them back to our room.

  When I entered the room, I called to my mother to wake her, but she did not move. I shook her, and still she did not wake. “Mother,” I called to her. “Mother?”

  She would not wake up. I found Sarasri in the kitchen and she sent a boy to find a healer. I sat by my mother’s side, breakfast forgotten.

  The healer, an old woman with white hair, sat on the edge of my mother’s bed and felt my mother’s cheek. She held a silver spoon beneath my mother’s nose and watched to see that my mother’s breath fogged the silver. She stroked my mother’s hand and called to her. Then she shook her head and said, “Ice sickness.”

  I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “It comes from the wind off the glacier,” Sarasri said. She frowned unhappily. “That’s what comes of telling tales about the women of the ice.”

  “Those who get the ice sickness sleep peacefully until they waste away,” the healer said.

  I stared at my mother. Her face was so calm and peaceful in sleep. It was hard to believe that anything was amiss. “What can I do?”

  “There is one cure,” the healer said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Three drops of dragon’s blood. Place them in her mouth and they’ll warm her back to life.” The healer shrugged. “But we have no dragon’s blood and no hero to fetch it for us.”

  Sarasri shook her head sorrowfully. “As if a hero would help,” she said. “How many have journeyed to Dragon’s Gate, filled with pride and noble plans? Not a one has returned.”

  “Do you have to be a hero to fetch dragon’s blood?” I asked. “We only need three drops of blood. The dragon doesn’t have to die to give up three drops.”

  Sarasri frowned but the old healer nodded. “That’s true,” she said. “Slaying the dragon is not necessary, if you can get a bit of blood by some other means.” She studied me. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, unfaded by her years. “Do you know anything about dragons?” she asked me.

  “Only what I have learned from heroic tales,” I said. “And that’s not much. The dragon usually dies as soon as the prince shows up.”

  The old woman nodded. “Those tales are about princes, not about dragons. Those stories describe a dragon as a fire-breathing lizard with wings.”

  “Is that wrong?” I asked.

  “It is not so much wrong as it is incomplete. The essence of a dragon is not in its appearance, but in its nature.”

  “What is its nature?”

  “A dragon is an inferno of anger, blazing with fury, exploding with pain. A dragon is a beast of fire and passion, feeding on fear and hatred.” The old woman stood and drew her woolen cloak around her shoulders. “Approached with fear, a dragon responds with fire.”

  “What if one does not approach with fear?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A difficult task to accomplish,” she said. “But if it could be done, you might manage to start a conversation. I have heard that dragons like to talk. But they can smell a liar and that awakens their anger. Never lie to a dragon.”

  Perhaps this is where the story really begins. With my realization that I had to go to Dragon’s Gate and ret
urn with three drops of blood from the dragon who had guarded the pass for the past hundred years.

  I arranged for Sarasri to care for my mother. I left the pony in Sarasri’s stables, since the way ahead was too rough and steep for the animal. Then I followed a footpath that led high into the hills.

  Dragon’s Gate was once known as Takla’s Pass, named after King Takla, who married the ice woman. This mountain pass offered the shortest route from the lowlands to the trading cities on the Northern Sea. Long ago, caravans laden with carpets and spices and gems made their way through the mountains along this road. King Takla—and after him Takla’s son, King Rinzen—charged merchants for safe passage.

  All that changed a hundred years ago when good King Belen of the lowlands had, at the urging of rich merchants, sought to overthrow King Rinzen and put an end to his tolls. King Belen’s army invaded the mountain kingdom. But a dragon released by some black magic drove back his army and closed the pass.

  The dragon laid waste to the land. What had once been a thriving kingdom became a barren deserted land. Merchants from the lowlands banded together to offer a reward to any who could slay the dragon and open the road through the pass. But all the heroes who tried to win the reward perished in the attempt: burned by the dragon’s fire, slashed by the dragon’s claws.

  Now merchants sent their goods through the desert and around the mountains to the south, a long and perilous journey. In the desert, bandits preyed on caravans and kidnapped merchants for ransom. But the possibility of being waylaid by bandits was better than the certainty of being killed by the dragon.

  The path I took to Dragon’s Gate was little better than a goat path. Winter avalanches had covered sections of the old trade route. Prickly shrubs had grown over the old road, and no one had cleared them away.

  From Nabakhri, it was three days’ hard travel to Dragon’s Gate. The villages grew smaller and meaner as I traveled. People along the way asked me where I was going—and shook their heads grimly when they heard of my mission. “Turn back, young man,” they said. “You haven’t a chance of succeeding.”

  The last village before the dragon’s pass was little better than a collection of grimy huts clinging to the side of the mountain. There a tiny teahouse doubled as an inn. Three shepherds sat by the fire in the common room, dining on lentil stew, fried bread, and tea.

  The innkeeper was a stout man with an impressive mustache and a head of hair as thick as the wool on the mountain sheep. “Are you lost?” he asked me. “There is nowhere to go on this trail.”

  I explained my mission. He served me dinner and sat with me while I ate.

  “You say you must approach the dragon without fear,” he said. “How can you do that? Only a fool would not fear the dragon.”

  It was a good question. As I climbed the mountain trails, I had been thinking about how to quell my fear.

  “Some of the stories that I tell are very frightening,” I told the innkeeper. “But I am not afraid when I tell these tales because I know they will end well. What I am doing now is worthy of a story. If I think of this as a story I am telling, I will not be afraid.”

  The innkeeper frowned. “But you don’t know that there will be a happy ending to this story of yours.”

  “Of course there will be,” I said. “I am telling the story, remember? Why would I tell my own story with an unhappy ending?”

  The innkeeper shook his head. “It sounds like you are just fooling yourself.”

  I nodded. “Indeed I am. What better way to keep away fear?”

  The innkeeper shook his head and poured me another cup of tea. He spent the rest of the evening telling me of heroes who went to slay the dragon and never returned.

  When I left the village the next morning, I did my best to put this conversation out of my mind. It wasn’t easy. Above me loomed the barren crags of Dragon’s Gate. Black rocks, like pointed teeth, made sharp silhouettes against the blue sky. One outcropping bore a resemblance to a standing man. That, it was said, was all that remained of King Takla.

  Late in the afternoon, I reached the ice field that surrounded the castle where the dragon lived. Over the years, the glacier had flattened the walls that surrounded the castle gardens and had engulfed the outbuildings. The castle’s outer walls had collapsed under the pressure of the ice, but the castle keep, the structure’s central fortress, still stood. One tall tower rose from the ice field. From where I stood, the tower was as big as my thumb, held at arm’s length.

  Cautiously I started across the ice fields toward the tower. I used my walking stick to test each patch of ice before trusting my weight to it. Once, the ice collapsed beneath my stick, sending up a spray of snow as it fell. At my feet, where my next step would have taken me, was a crevasse so deep that the bottom was lost in blue light and shadows. The crash of the ice shelf hitting the bottom of the crevasse reverberated through the glacier.

  The wind cut through my cloak; I could not stop shivering. At first, my feet ached with the cold. After a time, they became numb. I thought about how it would feel to lie down on the ice, like the ice woman in the story of King Takla. It would be painful at first, but then I would grow numb. I could rest, sleeping as peacefully as my mother slept.

  The sky darkened to a deep blue. The light that reflected from cracks deep in the ice was the same beautiful blue. In my weariness, I grew dizzy. Looking up at the sky seemed much the same as gazing down into the ice. My walking stick slipped and I stumbled, falling full length onto the ice. I turned over on my back to look up at the blue sky, grateful to be resting.

  I thought about staying there, just for a while. But that would not do. No tavern crowd would pay good money to hear about a hero who gave up and lay down in the snow. So I got up and kept walking on feet that felt like wood.

  At last, I reached the tower and circled it, looking for a way in. Halfway around, I discovered a gap in the tower wall. I ducked through the gap and found myself on an ice-slicked stairway. Narrow slits in the walls let in just enough light to reveal the stone steps. Beneath the layers of ice, I could see sconces that had once held torches. The walls were marked with soot where flames had licked the stone.

  Though the castle walls blocked the wind, it was even colder in the castle than it had been outside. My teeth chattered; I could not stop shivering. I climbed the stairs slowly, taking care not to slip on the icy steps.

  At the top of the stairs was a wide corridor. The walls were clear of ice and the air felt a little warmer. Looking down the corridor, I could see a glimmer of golden light, spilling from an open doorway. I walked toward it.

  In the doorway, I stopped and stared, my heart pounding. I could feel fear scratching at the edges of my awareness, but I reminded myself that there would be a happy ending. There had to be a happy ending.

  The dragon slept in the center of the great hall. The beast lay on what had once been a fine carpet—now tattered and scorched. The air stank of ashes and smoke. I could feel heat radiating from the beast, like the warmth from a banked fire.

  To hold fear at bay, I stared at the dragon and imagined how I might describe the monster when I told this story. The dragon’s body was like that of a terrible lizard, a lizard as large as a warhorse. Its wings—great leathery wings—stretched over its back. Its eyes were closed. Its mighty head rested on its front talons. I did not stare for too long at the dragon’s jaws and powerful talons. Instead, I considered the rest of the room and decided how best to describe it when I was telling this story in a tavern.

  This had once been a magnificent hall. The walls were dark with soot, but I could see paintings beneath the layer of grime. More than a hundred years ago, artists had decorated these walls. On the wall to my left, two men in hunting garb shot arrows at mountain goats, which were bounding away up the mountain. On the far side of the room, the wall was painted with a mountain landscape—the same mountain that lay outside the castle. But the artist had worked in a warmer and happier time. In the painting, wildflowers grew
among the gray stones.

  In the painting, the stones of the mountain formed a natural cave at the level of the floor. The rocks of the painted cave blended with the very real rocks of a great fireplace, large enough to hold a roasting ox.

  Beside that fireplace, a skeleton sat slumped in a carved oak chair. A golden crown rested on the skull. Tatters of rich fabric clung to the bones. They fluttered in the breeze that blew through a large break in the wall to my right.

  That wall had been shattered and its painting with it. I tried to imagine the blow that had shattered the wall, sending the stones tumbling inward and leaving a hole big enough to let the dragon pass through. Through the gap, I could see the glacier far below. The first stars of evening were appearing in the darkening sky. I shivered in the cool breeze.

  “I smell an enemy,” a voice growled.

  I looked at the dragon. The beast had not moved, but its eyes were open now. They glowed like the embers of a fire. Colors shifted and flickered in their depths: gold and red and blue. “I know you are an enemy because you stink of the lowlands. You aren’t a prince. You aren’t a hero. What are you, and why have you come here?”

  Be honest, I thought. Dragons can spot a liar. “A humble storyteller,” I said.

  “A storyteller?” The dragon lifted its head and studied me with glowing eyes. “How unusual. For the past hundred years, all my visitors have come to kill me. They march up the road from the lowlands with their soldiers following behind and their fear wakes me. I feel the shivering in their souls, the hatred in their hearts. I feel it burning and my own fire flares in response. And I shake off sleep and rise to do battle.”

  The dragon yawned, revealing a terrifying array of teeth. The beast stretched slowly, shaking out its great golden wings with a leathery rustle. Then the monster regarded me once again. “But you’re not a hero. You are dressed as a boy, but I know by your smell that you are a girl. You are afraid, but not so very afraid. And you want something from me. What is it you want? Tell me, girl of the lowlands, why I shouldn’t roast your bones with a single breath?”