by Hugh Cook
Hearst, spear in hand, made it to the gloom of the outer chamber. He stood gasping, panting, chest heaving. Hearing the dragon lumbering forward, Hearst opened his mouth and screamed, at the last moment shaping the scream to words: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
And, calmed by that incantation of courage, he counselled himself quickly. He had taken out the right eye: now for the left. He waited. The massive head came thrusting through the entrance. Hearst threw the second spear. Then ran: fleeing to the furthest corner of the outer chamber as the dragon raged forward, spouting flame and bellowing in agony.
With both eyes gone, only memory guided the dragon as it hauled itself towards the cave mouth and the open air. It was moving slowly now: crawling, dragging itself along. It stopped, half-way out of the cave, its body jamming the exit. Spasm after spasm shook its body.
And what if it died now, its massive corpse jamming the entrance?
– Forward, Morgan, forward now, darkness, a night attack, one foot, two, strength, warrior of Rovac, steel and strength, balance, by the hell, by the fourth hell, you have a chance, sweet blood and vodka, a chance, Hearst, Hast, brother, blood-brother, hold my hand my blood my brother, hold me tight, hold for chance, one chance.
– Sword to be strength, strength to be sword: 'Hah!'
Shouting, Hearst thrust Hast between the overlapping scales armouring the dragon. The blade drove no more than a handspan into the dragon's flesh: but now in its dying rage it knew its enemy was in the cave behind it.
The dragon's body convulsed. Hearst clung to his sword, his lips locked back in a snarl which was half a scream. The dragon's tail coiled and thrashed, snapping this way and that, sweeping bone-crunching death through the darkness. But it could not reach Hearst. Rock screamed as talons tore it open. The darkness belched as wings endeavoured to unfold, as leather-tough membranes battered against restraining rock.
Hearst grunted, trying to force his sword in deeper. There were no decisions left: his only hope lay in brute strength and endurance. His hands were slippery. He could not tell whether they were wet with sweat or blood.
Then the dragon started to back into the cave. Those massive limbs, with all the dragon's dying strength behind them, forced its weight backwards into the cave. Hearst braced himself, knowing the dragon had just one reason to get its head back into the cave: to ravage the forked creature now tormenting it.
Forcing itself backwards, the dragon, by its own efforts, drove Hearst's sword-blade deep into its body. Hast was that sword, firelight steel forged on Stokos. It cut through sinew and tendon, sliced through blood vessels and nerves, probing between the monster's ribs.
Pain convulsed to agony. The dragon lurched forward, jerking Hast from Hearst's hands. Hearst jumped backwards. Then ran, fleeing from the sweep of the tail which sought him as the dragon plunged forward.
The rock walls of the cave found him, and mothered him, and he clung there, clung to the rock, exhausted, half-weeping, his heart kicking like a baby. He heard a bellow from the dragon, then a hint of daylight diminished the darkness.
Gripping his head with both hands, Hearst forced his head to move to face the cave mouth. His eyes closed against the daylight. He set fingers to his eyes, and was about to force them open, when, in a sudden moment of clarity, he appreciated what a grotesque spectacle his own fear was making of his limp wet rag-doll body.
He was going to die anyway. Here, fear would not permit escape: he was trapped. The dragon would come back, and he would die. So die with pride, then. Die like a warrior.
– On your feet, manroot.
He rose, his feet braced for balance as if he stood on the heaving deck of a ship plunging through heavy seas. He threw back his head, mustered his pride, then gave all his strength to his challenge: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
Echoes pumped back from the rocks of the cave. Quietly, his mind echoed the echoes:
– Ahyak Rovac.
He saw his bloodstained sword lying on the floor of the cave near the cave mouth. Boldly, he strode forward and picked it up. He was ready now. This was his fate, and he knew it: to die in battle. And when all is said and done, a death in battle is no worse than any other.
But where was the dragon?
The cave mouth yawned open, empty.
Slowly, uncertainly, Hearst stepped forward. As he gained the cave mouth, loose scales slithered underfoot. Down below, at the bottom of the steep slope, the dragon lay helpless, racked by the pain of its death-agony. A little sparse vegetation, set ablaze by dragon-fire, burnt with quick, pale flames in the bright sunshine.
Hearst stumbled forward. His boot caught a loose scale, which flicked up into the air, glittering in the sunlight. Then loose stones gave way underfoot, the ground slid from under him, and he sat down suddenly. He stood up, and sheathed his sword in the interests of safety.
The sun was hot. Hearst glanced up at the sky, at the blazing disc of the sun. Then he turned his gaze back to the dragon. Stones clinked as it moved, weakly now, in its last efforts to escape from its pain.
So he had killed it.
He noticed there was blood on his hands. His own? Remembering Hast's bloodstained blade, he unsheathed his sword. He should clean it before sheathing it. Of course. So stupid of him to forget. Go forward, then. Down to the dragon.
He went down the slope to claim his kill.
And there he stood, Morgan Gestrel Hearst, son of Avor the Hawk, warrior of Rovac, song-singer, sword-master, leader of men. His sword Hast was in his hand, with the blood of a dragon-kill on the blade. It should have been his moment of triumph, sweet as his first conquest, sweet as his first kill. But instead he felt numb: empty.
– I would not even care to make a song of it.
***
'We should leave,' said Garash. 'No,' said Gorn.
'You heard those bellows,' said Garash. i heard them,' said Gorn. 'He was killing the dragon.'
'Impossible,' said Garash. 'The dragon must have been killing him. If it's quiet now, doubtless that's only because it's gargling with his blood.'
'He's a warrior of Rovac,' said Gorn.
'A warrior's ego might be a match for a dragon, but never his sword,' said Garash.
He glanced at Elkor Alish, who said nothing.
'I'm going to see what's happened,' said Blackwood.
'No,' said Garash.
'Someone has to go and see,' said Alish.
Leaving his pack by the rocks, Blackwood went softfoot through the sunlight. Soon he saw the dragon. And Morgan Hearst. The Rovac warrior was picking his way toward him with the uncertain steps of a convalescent invalid. As for the dragon: an occasional twitch indicated there was a little life left in its body, but it was fading fast. Sunlight glittered on its scales, which glistened with a trace of iridescence.
'You're bleeding,' said Blackwood.
'Am I?' said Hearst.
'Here,' said Blackwood, touching.
A scalp wound at the back of Hearst's head had soaked the hair with blood. Blackwood's hand was bloody when he removed it.
'It's just starting to hurt now,' said Hearst.
Who was beginning to feel the pain of other cuts and bruises he had suffered in the struggle with the dragon.
Blackwood walked towards the monster's head. 'Careful,' said Hearst, 'I wouldn't call it dead yet.' Blackwood turned.
'Miphon told me the blood of a dragon, mixed with the blood of a man, cures all ills.'
'I heard that,' said Hearst, i heard that, but I thought it was part of my dreams.'
'No, he said it,' said Blackwood, advancing.
'All right then – but I doubt that the best blood in the world is much of a cure for incineration.'
While they argued it out, the dragon quietly expired, and made not a murmur of protest when Blackwood, gingerly, touched a sluggish trickle of blood slowly weeping from an eye socket.
'That may not be enough,' said Hearst. 'And the blood you got from me may be too dry already.'
'Sure,' said Blackwood. 'And
the dragon may have to be a virgin born by a harvest moon, for all we know. I'll try it and see.'
In his hand, the blood of a dragon mixed with traces of the blood of a man. He remembered Miphon's words: the old lore says who drinks this draught of mixed blood will never love a woman and will never hate a man, will never be able to kill – not even in self-defence – and will never call any place home.
'Why do you wait?' said Hearst.
'Because this may be a mistake,' said Blackwood.
'Miphon told me you wouldn't survive the winter,' said Hearst.
Hearing the words spoken, Blackwood knew they were true: he had felt his strength weakening as the long march and the smoke parasite made their demands on his body. His choice was to live or to die. He chose to live, and licked a little of the mixed blood from the palm of his hand.
And swallowed.
He cried out as the blood scalded his throat. Then he felt heat glow in his stomach, as if he had just drunk a flagon of hot mulled wine. Then he felt the heat sweeping through his blood vessels. His heart pumped faster. He felt a thousand pulses beating in his body. The blood pounded in his skull. His femoral artery throbbed painfully. He swayed.
'What is it?' said Hearst. 'What's wrong?'
The sun slipped sideways. Hearst caught Blackwood as he fell, and lowered him to the ground.
Blackwood lay there, dazed by the power of the sun. All his life he had thought of the sun according to the conventions of his people, who named it as the eye which allows the world to see. But now he knew the true nature of the sun, which is not to see but to give.
The sun gave without stinting, gave with a passion which was neither love nor hate, but which was a profoundly self-involved rapture. And Blackwood saw that, while the nature of the sun is to give, it is profoundly selfish, for it does not care whether its gift helps or harms.
The sun, then – lording the heavens with a passion which would not care if the world entire were to be destroyed by the glory of its own joy in the creation of its gift.
Dizzy with revelation, Blackwood gaped. 'What's wrong?' said Hearst.
Blackwood closed his eyes, then opened them. Morgan Hearst loomed over him. Skin stretched across skull. Mirthless gash of teeth and tongue. A killer. And the eyes – concerned now, but, apart from concern, revealing a bitter loss and loneliness. Grief consoling itself with the – 'Blackwood? What's wrong?'
'Nothing,' said Blackwood, struggling to his feet. Hearst helped him. A dribble of smoke spilt from Blackwood's lips, fell to the ground, coiled, writhed, dispersed in the sunlight.
'Can you walk?' said Hearst. i think so,' said Blackwood.
The throbbing in his blood vessels was diminishing; the beat of his heart was slowing from its frenzy.
'Here are the others,' said Hearst.
They were approaching, moving quickly now they saw the dragon was dead. When they drew closer, Alish said to Hearst: i salute you.'
His voice was stiff and formal.
'Thank you,' said Hearst. 'Now let's be moving. There's carrion birds gathering overhead, showing our position to everything and everyone for leagues in every direction.'
'Are you sure you're fit to travel? You're bleeding.'
'A scratch, no more,' said Hearst. 'I've got legs, still, and I can use them.'
And Blackwood, listening, knew this brusque warrior-style efficiency of speech was being used to repress a passionate outcry. He could not say whether the words left unspoken were words of love or hate, but he did know that this Rovac warrior, Morgan Hearst, was not the simple unsplicer of flesh that he pretended to be.
'We can't go yet,' cried Gorn. 'There may be treasure in the cave. We have to explore!'
'It's the truth,' said Garash, unwisely. 'There may well be treasure.'
And, after that, nothing would do but for Gorn to venture into the cave, where he glutted his greed with gold and diamonds.
Onwards, then. Fumaroles. Bubbling mud. Crinkled rock left by old lava flows. Once, tiers of pink and white terraces, ten times the height of a man, which had been built up by hot springs depositing chemicals for years lengthening to generations.
Gorn staggered along with enough loot to buy out an empire. However, after a day, he conceded defeat, and abandoned all but a king's ransom. After another day, Alish and Hearst managed to bully him out of half of that, which was then flung into a pool of boiling mud. But his pack was still overloaded.
Blackwood had no lust for dragon gold. He had other things to think about. He realised the cure for his illness had indeed… changed him.
To Blackwood, each new vista, the moment after he had first glimpsed it, seemed as familiar as if he had known it all his life. It seemed to him that he knew this shattered landscape as well as he knew the lands of Estar: given this instant empathy with every landscape, he would now call no particular place home, for he would be at home in all places.
Some sheltered city dweller might have been terrified by this change, but to Blackwood it did not seem unnatural. Living for years in the wild, he had developed his powers of observation so he could interpret the weather-signs by a single glance at the sky; after a moment's consideration, he could judge the age of track-signs and much of the nature of the animal which had made them; navigating without maps and sleeping in the open had taught him a keen appreciation of the landscape he moved through.
In the days when he had dared the unfamiliar territory of the Penvash Peninsular, he had been able, without conscious effort, to look at a range of hills and identify the slopes that would give the easiest approach to the main ridge line, and those gullies and ravines where water was most likely to be found.
Heightened powers of empathy with the landscape did not trouble Blackwood, but he was disturbed by similarly heightened perceptions of people – particularly when he saw the hackiron hatred with which Elkor Alish regarded Morgan Hearst.
Yet if Alish was disfigured by hatred, he was nevertheless amazing to watch for he brought such physical grace to everything he did. Training with a sword in the evening, an ardent spirit matching total concentration and total commitment to perfect economy of effort, he revealed a matchless capacity for joy in performance.
Watching him, Blackwood sensed how Alish felt in those moments of perfection: like a god, buoyed up by limitless possibilities. Yet dedication was not matched by wisdom, for this mastery of the potentials of flesh and steel was entirely self-involved; the discipline served to preserve the warrior's inner being, denying change, allowing a fanatic hatred to survive for years without nourishment.
This was a man who denied himself change. Matchless energies, essentially joyful and godlike, were warped to the service of narrow disciplines which preserved an earthbound hatred. Blackwood saw this, and also saw that there was no way for an outsider to change the man without destroying him, for his hatred was not an expendable excrescence like a wart – it was part of the complexities of the inner fabric of the man.
Yet if, one day, Elkor Alish were to find a way to choose to change, then perhaps he might become a perfect manifestation of something which Blackwood soon came to think of as the flame of life. To varying degrees, he saw this flame in each of them: Hearst, Alish, Gorn and Garash. What he saw was the beauty of the vitality which graces every human life.
Blackwood was no mystic; he had no desire to see visions. He repeatedly told himself that it was all delusion, that the dragon's blood was working on him as liquor works on a drunkard, distorting the way in which the world is seen.
Yet in the end he had to admit that he saw something which was really there to be seen. For he could remember a day – long ago now – when he and Mystrel had walked together in Looming Forest, in spring:
Sky, blue sky, the colour of my lover's eyes; Leaf, young leaf, her hands no softer.
Blackwood had been in love that day, not only with Mystrel but with all the world. It had only been for a day, or perhaps only for a single morning, but in that time he had seen the flame of life
which is in all things. Now he saw it from moment to moment, day after day.
One may survive occasional visions. From old memories inherited from the wizard Phyphor, Blackwood knew the poet Saba Yavendar had spoken of such visions. But Saba Yavendar had seen them only now and then: he had been able to make his peace with the world in which he lived, as evidenced by his ability to write a paean of praise for bloody slaughter, the song of the Victory of the Prince of the Favoured Blood, which Hearst had recited in the High Castle in Trest.
How could Blackwood live constantly with such visions? He knew that if he ever had to raise his hand against another man, he would be unable to do it. How could he bear to take a blade and destroy that flame of life? Yet if he could not defend himself when the need arose, sooner or later he would meet his death, and probably sooner rather than later.
A saint might, perhaps, have welcomed such visions – but Blackwood was no saint. In a hard and often bitter life, Blackwood had, by suffering, learnt to live with the realities of the world. Now, for him, the realities had changed, and it seemed he must go through all that suffering again.
***
After marching across leagues of monotonous flat lava country, in which there was no drinkable water, they passed between the blue lakes. The water, heavily contaminated with sulphuric acid, was a deep, unnatural blue, and Blackwood cautioned against drinking it.
North of the blue lakes, the volcanic nature of the terrain was less pronounced; the going became easier. They thought they might be clear of the dragon country – then they came upon a clutch of dragon eggs. Gorn attacked one of the eggs, smashing and battering at it until he was gory with yolk and white. Hearst stopped him from damaging the others.
Nearby was a pool of boiling water, seething with steam and fury. It bubbled and tumbled, never still, never silent. Hearst had one of the man-high eggs rolled into the pool. Then another. Then a third. The eggs bobbed up and down in the boiling water. One cracked; white stuff forced its way out, hardening in the water into fantastic forms like mould and fungus.
