The Dragon Who Didn't Fly

by C. M. Barrett

  “Yes, those, too. They pay for their pleasures, just as do the drug abusers, by being deprived of any significant role in the shaping of their country. Thus, they are isolated, and Oasis is uncorrupted. Those who change their minds and decide to learn mental and emotional discipline can re-enter the mainstream of society.”

  “But without having to atone,” Snurf said. “The Godlies do not accept that. Those who contribute to an atmosphere of licentiousness make it more difficult for the ones who seek purity of mind and body. The sinners should be punished.”

  “A spirit of vengeance is emotional extravagance unworthy of Mind,” Phileas said. “Let’s hear some facts, instead.” He turned to Kermit. “Isn’t it true that since the relaxation of the sex laws we have greatly reduced incidents of rape and murder?”

  “I can verify that.” Kermit tapped on his handheld computer. “Rape down seventy-five percent, murder fifty percent. Excellent statistics.”

  “And I’d rather have live and unbrutalized citizens. In this, I follow the example of my father, Calmus Ar’ran, Guardian before me, who said that law was no substitute for reasoning with the people.”

  “We all know that,” Malvern Frost said, “but I’d like to know how he’d deal with the Earthers. Agitation increases among the field workers. Earthers spout the nonsense that they’ve heard the earth cry out. They claim that abuse of the land will lead to our doom. Many are now bleating that we must become one with it. Imagine that, becoming one with mud and dung and mindless animals who eat and shit and call that life. They’re actively recruiting young Oasans. On three occasions, they’ve demonstrated in the center of Nathansville.”

  As annoying as the other Councilors could be, Phileas considered only Malvern dangerous. Half Dolocairner and half Etrenzian, he could shift identities to his advantage, at one moment expressing his solidarity with those who felt their ways through life and the next displaying all the attributes of a formidable, emotionless mind. Lately Phileas had sensed in him an overarching ambition, and today Malvern seemed far too pleased about Kermit’s gloomy report.

  Wendly’s brow furrowed like a newly ploughed field. “I’m seeing too many good men and women turn to the Earther cult—not the kind of people who weep at the death of a sparrow, but honest, intelligent citizens. We should be listening and seeing if there’s any way of finding common cause, instead of driving them underground.”

  Phileas nodded. “Exactly as Calmus said. Let’s never forget that the philosophy of Oasis is based on the free exchange and enrichment of thought.”

  Malvern pounded the table. “But as you said, Guardian, it’s not based on emotional extravagance. I defy anyone to make common cause with the idea that the earth can speak. Show me one passage in Nathan’s writing that even suggests such twaddle. Earthism is a disease, a fungus, a rot, and it will destroy our food production like any disease. There’s already huge disruption, as I have reason to know, living in Oasis West, cheek by jowl with the farmers.”

  Phileas suppressed a smirk. Cheek by jowl, indeed. Malvern had plenty of both. Through some act of administrative chicanery, he’d built a house on one of the few hills in Oasis West, claiming it was necessary to have an overview of the fields. Oddly, this house also needed to be larger than a typical farmer’s dwelling, and the interior was, if not luxurious in the decadent style of Tamaras, no monument to austerity. This way of living could provoke the people to greater unrest.

  “We aren’t doing nearly enough,” Snurf said, “but, as I continually state, only in the Godly sect are all equal.”

  “A sect Nathan would never have permitted,” Daria said.

  “Untrue! Unfair! And among the Godlies you won’t find the greed, the jealousy, or the unleashed lust that poisons the rest of the population. We practice Nathan’s creed of austerity in every aspect of our lives.”

  Phileas thought someone should feed Daria to the dragon, but she was tough to quash. “These Godly notions of sin and repentance undermine our ideals,” she said, “and some of these fanatics standing on the street corners have no more emotional control than the worst of the Earthers. It’s what you could expect of people whose ancestors froze their bollocks off every winter—and we all know how long a Dolocairn winter lasts.”

  Phileas looked in despair at the Council members. They could only agree about how bad things were. It was up to him to spin some notion to promote unity.

  “Councilors, we need renewal. We’ve already planned the celebrations for the five-hundredth anniversary of Nathansville, but we’d better fine-tune them. I recommend encouraging those who’ll make speeches to emphasize unity more than ever and the idea that every citizen is important. I’d also recommend a particularly heavy emphasis on what the days of slavery were like, and I’d like to see a high percentage of Dolocairners participating in the performances.”

  He turned to Snurf. “I stand in total opposition to the Godly idea that people will only turn away from emotional extravagance if they live in terror of an afterlife of being chased by the dragon. However, I favor reminding people what happens when they throw reason and logic out the window. As the fine play, Zena Triumphant, reminds us, emotional slavery can be as much a form of bondage as physical servitude. Let’s inspire renewed vigilance.”

  He looked around the table. “Are we in accord?”

  “Well spoken, Guardian,” Kermit said. “If we all do our part, I should end up with more encouraging numbers to crunch.”

  “I’m always in favor of reminding people about the bad old days,” Daria said. “Oasis rose from the ashes of decadence.”

  The others nodded. “Good,” Phileas said. “By next week I’ll expect plans to raise enthusiasm among the field workers, students, special interest groups, and general population.”

  He looked at the printed agenda. “What’s this item: Dragon?”

  “That’s mine,” Malvern said, “and it’s critical. Last night I heard that the dragon was seen entering the fields. Some brave men fought it back into the swamp.”

  Godlies, Earthers, and now the dragon? “Why was I not told immediately?”

  “Because I’m still attempting to verify the information. No need to throw the population into panic.”

  That might be exactly what Malvern wanted to do. “This is a very serious matter. Except for the occasional drunken idiot, no one has seen the dragon since the arrival of the first settlers.”

  “Some people even wonder if it’s still alive,” Wendly said. “Only the youngest children still play the Dragon game.”

  “Another example of the decline in morals,” said Snurf. “Unless we have the dragon to remind me what beasts we can become without the discipline of Mind, we will fail as a nation. Consider how Dolocairn long ago lost itself to dragon worship. Do we want a country poor in material goods, starving for intellect, rich only in the murk of emotion?”

  “We all know dragon worship ruined Dolocairn,” Malvern said. “And every smart Dolocairner in Oasis has learned to distance himself from that disaster of a country. We know that every dragon is our enemy, but let’s pay attention to the monster in the swamp.”

  Phileas wished Malvern weren’t so articulate. It made him more dangerous. “Let’s get down to specifics,” he said. “We must try to determine why the dragon appeared. Everyone who saw it is ordered to report to the Healing Center immediately, while their impressions are fresh.”

  “If you wish it, Guardian,” Malvern said, his deference thin.

  “I do wish it.”

  Pounding at the door interrupted him. “Enter.”

  A young woman dressed in the green tunic and trousers of an apprentice Healer ran into the room. “Assistant Chief Healer Romala Kyle needs you. We have an emergency.”

  “This meeting is adjourned,” Phileas said. “We will meet again in a week.”

  He shoved his chair aside and left the room.

  Phileas walked quickly from the administrative complex to the Healing Center. Two Healers leaped to att
ention when he entered the lobby. “Healer Kyle awaits you in Room S2 on the top floor.”

  Phileas breathed deeply to quell the small pulse of anxiety in his throat. That was his mother’s room.

  Though impatience was a dangerous failing, he couldn’t wait for the elevator and vaulted up the stairs, past the surgery suite, the mental mastery training floor, and the wards for those who were suffering only a slight reversal in their mental fortunes. He opened the door to Room S2 and closed it quickly behind him.

  Romala Kyle stood by Janzi’s bed, looking as if she’d witnessed the front line of a Tamaran invasion. Nonetheless, her manners were impeccable.

  “Guardian, I apologize for interrupting your meeting.”

  “No apologies required. Your damage control has been superb. Did the Chief Healer take a turn for the worse?”

  Romala summoned him closer. “This morning, when I attended her, she was highly agitated, squeezing her fingers together, occasionally bursting into tears.”

  “Tears? My mother?”

  “You can imagine my shock. She asked me if I knew that the dragon was our friend.”

  “Our friend? You’re certain these were her words.”

  She nodded, her black eyes steady. “She repeated them several times. She also claimed that we must honor and express our emotions.”

  Phileas fought the temptation to fall onto the floor and collapse. “And from whence did this astonishing information come?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me, but she said it was documented.”

  I am the Guardian. The future of a nation depends on my self-control. I will not fail. Phileas pulled a chair beside the Chief Healer’s bed, shaking her gently awake.

  Janzi’s black eyes snapped open. “Phileas, I’m so glad you’re here. I have vital news.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “We must change all our policies immediately. Oasis will finally be free. We can shake off the bondage of fear and the tyranny of mind control. We will at last come into balance.”

  “This is wonderful news. How did you discover it?”

  “Just before I fell ill, I was looking for a book on healing I wanted to have entered into the public database. Through an accident—though logic admits to no accidents—I found a hiding place that held an ancient, dusty manuscript. It was Zena’s last testament. What I read created such turmoil that illness took advantage of my imbalance, but a period of rest has refreshed and revitalized me.”

  “Oasis rejoices,” Phileas said. “I would like to see the manuscript that brought you such happiness.”

  Janzi smiled. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Zena used a binding spell she learned from her sorcerer father to prevent anyone who wasn’t ready for her words from finding it. It remains in its hiding place, awaiting your belief. Hopefully, I’ve planted a seed that will flower into faith.”

  “Having read the ancient texts about Etrenzian sorcery, I’m aware that binding spells can be broken,” Phileas said.

  A crafty look came over his mother’s face. “It would be demeaning for a Guardian to dabble in sorcery.”

  “I will suffer that or any humiliation for the sake of our country. Is it not the work of the Guardian to decide what should be hidden and what should not?”

  “Zena thought you’d say that, not that she knew who you were, nothing personal. She referred to the Guardian. Why struggle with spells and useless searches? If you’re meant to find the manuscript, you will, and Oasis will learn the truth.”

  The Chief Healer, who, after Phileas, was supposed to be the most mentally disciplined person in Oasis, began to weep. “How wrong we’ve been. It’s unbearable to contemplate. And the dragon, the poor dragon.”

  Phileas quickly shielded himself against both her obvious insanity and the fatal temptation towards sympathy. Here was the great danger of being a Healer. One needed to sense the emotions of others, but the shields against absorbing them had to be vigilantly maintained. Janzi had obviously neglected her shielding to the point where her mind was probably a quagmire.

  He would soon need to find out, but he decided to first see how much reason remained to her. “Does Zena mention the dragon?”

  For a moment, Janzi’s eyes flashed with intelligence. “Don’t think you can trick me. It follows logically. We must love the earth, Phileas, and the dragon is part of the earth.”

  She burst into fresh tears.

  “Janzi, your state of emotional agitation must be painful to you. Will you allow us to enter your mind for healing?”

  “I made no attempt before,” Romala said. “I felt a solo effort might be dangerous, and I could trust none but you to join me.”

  “Quite right.” The woman’s reasoning and discretion were flawless. This was a priceless gift, since the need for a new Chief Healer was now urgent. “You won’t be offended if I take the primary role here?”

  “Not at all, but I do have a suggestion. I don’t wish to offend you, but this will be a delicate probe for you, as the subject is your mother, who’s in a highly agitated state.”

  “I never felt better,” Janzi said.

  Phileas winced at the word, “felt.” “Healer Kyle, if you’re suggesting that we link minds, I would appreciate that greatly. Not only does it provide a safety precaution, but we can confer later.”

  “I give permission to both of you,” Janzi said. “My mind has never been in better health, and I have nothing to hide.”

  Except the location of the mysterious manuscript. Phileas carefully shielded that thought.

  “Excellent,” he said.

  “Before we explore her mind, let’s get an overall view of the electrical activity,” Phileas said.

  One of Oasis’s foremost scientists had invented a computer that measured mental and emotional activity in the brain. Romala hooked his mother up to the machine with electrodes.

  “I’m surprised to see so little activity in the left prefrontal cortex,” she said. “The Chief Healer has always been a woman of great intelligence and reason.”

  Phileas pointed at the screen. “Look at all the red. The active emotions have probably suppressed the logical functions. That’s why you see so little blue on the screen. I find it odd that, agitated as she is, she doesn’t seem to be fearful. The right prefrontal cortex is lively.”

  “You think I don’t know anything about the brain?” Janzi demanded. “My right prefrontal cortex is jumping for joy because I’m happy to finally know the truth.”

  “We’re glad to hear that, “ Phileas said in his most soothing voice. “Healer Kyle, let’s link.”

  Sensing, the art of entering another’s awareness and locating areas of emotional disturbance, was a Healer’s most powerful tool. It was also the most dangerous, because the Healer, if not fully detached from the subject’s turbulence, might become infected by it.

  Phileas closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths, breathing out all loose strands of personality and emotional turbulence, breathing in the cool, dry air of logic and reason. I am a vehicle for the light of truth, he repeated silently. My work is to go into this troubled mind and cleanse it of accumulated poison. I will at all times shield myself from that poison. I attach no personal glory to the idea of success. My work is for the benefit of humankind and for this disturbed being.

  The sensation of entering another’s mind was dreamlike, except that the skilled and well-shielded Healer observed, rather than entered, the dream of another.

  Healer Kyle’s mind was a calming place, with softly waving green fronds and the fragrance of lavender and chamomile, a tidy and well-tended garden of a mind. Phileas suspected that weeds grew on side paths, but, like all people who practiced mind mastery, she’d barred those paths from others’ view.

  His mind wasn’t garden-like. It was a library, full of books, some worn from use, others new, their bindings uncracked. Not all of these books made for wholesome consumption, but he kept the unsuitable ones deep in the back, in a small, locked room.


  When he saw Romala walking down an aisle lined with rows of volumes on healing, he knew the link was established. He reminded himself to observe dispassionately as he began a slow, cautious probe into Janzi’s mind.

  The outskirts were littered with tattered frills of feeling: longing for her decades-dead mother, concerns for his own well-being, and other emotions that a Chief Healer should have swept away as part of routine mind cleansing. Clearly, his mother had been declining for some time, but she’d known how to conceal this, failing only when her cluttered mind had exploded and spewed forth dangerous nonsense.

  Maybe. He reminded himself that he was still clearing away the outskirts of consciousness. He went deeper, looking as he traveled to see if, in the midst of this disorder lay any information about the manuscript. Finding none, he took the most heavily trodden neural pathway into the center of Janzi’s mind. As he probed, she responded with a series of sensory images. The path turned muddy and overgrown with weeds. The atmosphere was dank, oppressive, and foul. It would be impossible to plant the seeds of mental health in such a poisonous environment.

  Phileas had never been in a place like this, but awareness, slow as water dripping from a mossy branch, penetrated his own mind. This was the swamp, the dismal landscape he’d seen every time he’d attempted to heal those brave and honest beings who’d come for help when they found themselves afflicted with the Earther disease. Their terrifying images had described clammy air thick with mosquitoes and gnats and an environment populated with hissing snakes and deadly spiders. In Phileas’ considered judgment, their desperation to escape that nightmare world had been the main ingredient in their successful healing.

  No such desperation moved Janzi. Her mind seemed perfectly comfortable about housing this horror show. It was far too soon to admit failure, but one could reasonably conclude that additional healings would be required. He was looking around to see what temporary repairs might be made when the earth began to shake beneath his feet, and noxious steam overpowered the general odor of rot.

  And the Dragon appeared, no fire-breathing demon, but a cartoon character, with a big, goofy smile and soft eyes. I am your friend.

  The horror of it briefly disarmed Phileas, pulling him into the dream and hurling him back to his childhood.