The Dragon Who Didn't Fly

by C. M. Barrett

“And the Guardian, if he reads me. At the very least, he’ll think I’m an Earther, especially since they’ve begun to band around her. That’s why I want to leave tomorrow, or at least before the Guardian is well enough to visit. I wish I were smart enough to figure out a way to avoid meeting him.”

  “We’ve been over this before. You are smart. Together, we should be able to come up with a plausible explanation for your sensing what the best-trained minds in the nation didn’t.”

  “Saying I couldn’t remember didn’t work.”

  “Could you have seen something? The flash of gunmetal or a suspicious bulge inside his coat?”

  “If he goes into my mind he’ll know I’m lying.”

  “Fill your mind with junk: stupid, distracting thoughts. You’re smart enough to keep your gift hidden.”

  “Gift? Call it a curse.”

  The kitten leapt onto her lap, and Serazina thought she heard, Not a curse. When she heard cats speak she was in big trouble.

  “I’ll come if you want,” Berto said. “I am a witness, after all.”

  “Oh, Berto, you’re so good to me.”

  * * *

  Druid tried to cover his ears against Gris’s screeching. The hawk’s visits were becoming far too regular.

  “Vital news! The plot thickens. Someone tried to kill the human who calls himself the Guardian of Oasis.”

  The dragon became fully awake. “What’s your source?”

  “Hawks flying overhead saw the attack and hovered long enough to see whether the breath of life escaped the human’s lips. They say he rose to his feet and said he was well. Meanwhile, many sources, particularly mice and rats, report that the humans who carry smoking sticks are going through certain neighborhoods, searching for what they call ‘terrorists.’”

  The news was interesting, but Druid couldn’t yet see how it would affect life in the swamp. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. The Guardian human probably would have been killed, except that a young woman sensed the assassin’s intentions and knocked him down so that his shot went wild. Lot of head scratching about how she sensed the threat.”

  It was an unusual gift for a human and not a piece that fit into the puzzle. The only clear fact that emerged from this mélange of information was that unexpected things were now happening on a fairly regular basis. There seemed no point in trying to figure out anything. By the time he’d assembled a shaky structure of facts, a new one would knock everything down.

  Chapter 11

  When Orion arrived at the pond that night, Tara wasn’t prepared to be friendly. He’d promised to visit her at least once a day, but he hadn’t come the night before. The novelty and challenge of living among humans that had distracted her for the first few days had faded, and she was lonely for the company of cats.

  As long as she stayed outside and out of Serazina’s mother’s way, her survival was assured, but she couldn’t ease her aching heart. The need for the warmth of her mother and littermates was a hairball lodged in her throat. She felt like spitting it in Orion’s eye, but when he began to silently groom her, the idea of complaining tasted bitter. She pushed her head against his chest instead.

  After the grooming, they lay in a silver ribbon of moonlight. “I came here last night,” he said, “but I saw strange humans gathered about the house. Approach seemed dangerous, so I went off with the others who have been trying to make some sense of the attempted killing of the human leader. Have you heard about it?”

  “Serazina saved him by sensing the assassin.”

  Orion focused his gaze on the house. “An untrained human who senses and tracks the thoughts and feelings of others? Finally I hear something that makes sense. Without knowing she did, she must have called you to her. That means she might be able to unstop her ears and heart and hear you.”

  “It’ll take a lot of learning. Even though she refuses to give up her gift, it frightens her. These humans are even stranger than I thought. One came here last night, directly from the Guardian, a woman called the Chief Healer. Her purpose was to honor the girl for saving this Guardian’s life. I read her thoughts.”

  Orion’s eyes widened. “You have become an adept. Surely her shields are better than most.”

  “Better than most humans, perhaps.” Tara was tempted to brag a little, but Orion had already praised her.

  “Tell me about her thoughts,” he said.

  “Imagine a cat who constantly cleans its sleeping area, brushing out bits of leaf, always trying to smooth out and flatten the grass. This female kept brushing away emotion, as if it were an irritation or some venomous insect that wanted to sting her. It’s very difficult to describe because I’ve never sensed that kind of attitude. You told me humans didn’t like emotion, but I had to sense it to understand. I observed her thoughts of herself as a healer. She views emotions as symptoms of disease. A human healer concentrates on their suppression and elimination.”

  “That sounds right to me. Now tell me more about Serazina’s mind.”

  “Her mind is excellent, but she clings to her emotions in a defiance of those who tell her they are wrong. She senses more with feeling than with mind. If she saw an ant, she wouldn’t be watching it. She’d be saying, ‘Hello, ant.’ She’d be experiencing the smoothness of the grass and how it sways in the breeze. When she senses pain in others, she experiences that, too. She needs to learn some shielding, but she’d no more give up her feelings than I’d give up my whiskers. Underneath the fear she stubbornly holds to who she is.”

  “Very interesting and promising.”

  “Except that she’s in danger. When the important female questioned her, she tried to pretend she didn’t remember what happened during the attempted assassination. She’s more terrified than ever, now that she’s come to the ruling humans’ attention.”

  “They’re frightened, too. Cats are hearing that people blame the attempted assassination on a group of humans called Earthers—”

  “Who are they? Serazina talked with her friend about them. She was afraid the human leaders would think her one of them.”

  “Most of them work in the fields, although some have fled and live deep in the forest. They talk about how the Earth is our Mother and we must live in harmony with Her ways.”

  “Why would such humans try to kill another?”

  “It makes no sense,” Orion said. “Either they’re very confused—which would make them normal humans—or someone is falsely blaming these acts on them. Considering how many crimes are unjustly blamed on cats, we need to consider that possibility. Either way, the Earthers pose a problem.”

  “How could humans who love the earth be problems?”

  “Because they give the idea of loving the Earth a terrible name. At this point, people think that even liking flowers will make them suspect. And Earthers express the feelings everyone else is trying to suppress. This causes them to be universally hated and feared.”

  Tara wished she could return to the time when Serazina had been a distant, pleading voice. “No wonder she’s afraid of being called one. And there’s another problem.”

  Orion groaned. “At the moment, I long for my careless life as a hot-blooded tom.”

  “You think I wouldn’t rather be an empty-headed kitten chasing hummingbirds? You didn’t tell me that humans also breed on purpose for the best gene combinations. The Guardian needs a woman with certain characteristics to breed his heir. Apparently, they’re not as good at selection as you are, so he has to mate with any woman who might be appropriate.”

  Orion rolled on the grass, his sides heaving. “This is the first time I’ve envied a human.”

  “But you don’t understand. Serazina has managed to disqualify herself by hiding her sensing gift. Now she’s afraid he’ll discover it. If he can train or force her to suppress her emotions, he may want to mate with her.”

  Her father pulled himself back to a sitting position. “That is serious. How soon would this happen?”

  “It seems she wo
n’t be old enough until leaf fall, but if he discovers her emotional ‘deficiencies,’ he may not only eliminate her as a possible mate—Orion, I can hardly say this, but the pictures in her mind tell me that when humans don’t like how certain brains work, they dig into them with sharp sticks and change them.”

  Orion hissed. “Mother, why do we bother with them? When I hear such things, I think they’re beyond saving.”

  “I know,” Tara said. “They’re stupid and dangerous beyond belief, and I can’t believe that she has the nerve to think of me as a cute little dimwit. Were she free of danger, I could walk away from her without a second thought, but I care enough that I can’t allow her to fall into the hands of humans who’ll torture her.”

  “No. We need to hunt for an answer. Tell me your thoughts.”

  “Serazina’s male friend, Berto, offered to try to confuse the Guardian, but I suspect the Guardian is more than clever. What is a Guardian, anyway? How can I pounce on a problem when I can’t even see it?”

  “We hear he’s a human who can bypass the strongest shields to read others. He seems to be born with this gift, but it’s been developed to mastery through his training in their idea of Mind. Those we spoke to in the village reckon his abilities might equal those of an average cat, but I don’t want to underestimate him. We need to check him out for ourselves. I’ve asked a hawk named Gris to visit some of our trusted friends in the city. He accepted the assignment because he wants to follow up on the assassination story.”

  “And that raises another question,” Tara said. “If the Guardian’s powers are so great, why didn’t he sense the assassin?”

  “Good thinking. Perhaps he was unwilling to experience the would-be killer’s emotions. As you suggested, even these trained humans may avoid experiencing the essence of a feeling. Other possibilities: Maybe he had a temporary weakness: depression, discouragement. These are normal emotions, but they could debilitate one who dreads feeling. Or maybe the feelings have been inside him a long time, gradually weakening him, and he missed a warning that would have saved his life. I wonder if he’s weary of living.”

  “The Chief Healer who visited said he was healing well, but I sensed some concern within her. She seemed very fond of this human.”

  “She may be significant,” Orion said. “Tell me more about her.”

  “Despite her attempts to resist emotion, she seemed kind and caring. She was drawn to Serazina in a motherly way. The more the girl withdrew, the deeper the pull.”

  “A human of heart?”

  Tara shrugged. “The world must hold one or two of them.”

  “In her position, she may be permitted to focus those emotions into an intention to heal. The unfocused, unacknowledged emotions are the dangerous ones.”

  Orion trailed his paw into the water. “See how the slightest motion changes everything; the moon becomes a rippled blur, the stars smears of light. Humans change like that, from moment to moment, pulled by the emotions they refuse to recognize.”

  He stretched and circled a spot on the ground three times. “Let’s nap before we discuss this further.”

  Tara buried her head into his side.

  “Let’s go into the village,” Orion said when they woke up the next morning. “With four big ears, we may learn something new.”

  As they passed through the alley beyond the butcher shop, the white cat who’d called for killing humans at the celebration greeted them. “Ah, it’s the Chosen, come to grace our cheerless alley. Greetings, Great One.”

  Tara’s mouth was shaped for a snappy retort when Orion said, “Greetings, Ossa, isn’t it? May the Many-whiskered One bless you with a dinner of mice.”

  Ossa scowled. “Your tongue is clotted with cream. Be off before I’m tempted to believe you.”

  “A blade of grass grows more quickly than a tom like that,” Tara complained as they left the alley.

  “Maybe not. Sometimes the most hostile creatures have the greatest longing.”

  “Really? Humans must be close to bursting with their longings.”

  They passed a fenced area with a low white building, lined with the material called glass. Small human young ran around on a surface of crushed stones. One, a female, fell down and started crying. An older female approached her, shaking her head.

  “No crying, Kira. Learn to control yourself.”

  The young one shuddered, tears quivering on her cheeks.

  “Go face the wall and breathe deeply until you are calm again.”

  Curious, Tara stalked the girl’s thoughts and emotions: the misery, the anguish held tight in her throat, the ache to release her emotions. Like a feline covering scat, the girl pushed layers of thought over the pain, where it huddled like an orphaned kitten with many other abandoned thoughts.

  Tara looked at Orion. “All that grief will make her sick.”

  Orion nodded. “And unhappiness will always stalk her like a hungry wolf.”

  Tara turned away from the female and saw two small male humans fighting.

  “If you don’t stop hitting me, the dragon is going to get you.”

  “Is not!”

  “Is, too, going to come all the way to the swamp and right to your house. He’s going to burn it down and pull you from your bed and eat you for a snack. He’ll spit out your bones on the sidewalk!”

  The boy spat on the stones, and the other one tried to hit him. The adult human shouted at them. “Dollon, Yanis, stop that.”

  “We were just playing the dragon game, like you taught us,” the spitter said, kicking the metal fence. “Kill the dragon! Smash his bones! Protect the people!”

  “Drown him in the swamp!” the other boy shouted. “Bury him in the muck, feed him to the alligators. What’s an alligator?”

  “A big lizard with millions of teeth, eat you up if the dragon doesn’t get you first.”

  Tara and Orion crept away quietly, neither of them caring to see if “Kick the Cat” would be the next game. “They really hate the dragon,” Tara said.

  “And fear him. We need to learn more about this.”

  They returned to the alley. Ossa was finishing off a moldy piece of meat. “Sorry, none to share.”

  “We’d like you to share some information,” Orion said. “What’s the story with the dragon?”

  “Ah, the dragon. Is he real? I don’t know. Not a cat in this village has ever visited the swamp, no reason to, if what the humans say about it are true: big reptiles with millions of teeth—”

  “We heard a little human talking about that. Alligators?” Tara asked.

  “And crocodiles. And poisonous snakes, wolves, not to mention the dragon—if he exists.”

  “We suspect that he does,” Orion said. “What do humans think he’ll do to them?”

  “Eat them in their beds. They should get over this idea that they’re tasty. No self-respecting carnivore would sink his teeth into their flesh. I think someone made up the dragon as a way to frighten humans and keep them in line.”

  “But they’re against emotion,” Tara said.

  “Except when it comes to the dragon. The powerful ones encourage the others to fear and hate him. That should tell you something.”

  “Thanks, Ossa,” Orion said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Yeah, so put in a good word for me with the Great Cat Mother next time you talk to her.” Ossa slunk back into his alley.

  * * *

  Phileas was tired of his bedroom’s white walls and tired of being treated like an invalid. “I’m perfectly well. It’s been a week since the assassination attempt, and I need to meet the country’s needs by showing the people that I’m fully recovered and that I intend to protect them against the terrorists. I want regional meetings scheduled.”

  Romala shook her head. “You’re not well enough to travel.”

  “What about the open Council meeting tonight? I have to go to that. It’s two blocks away. Do you think I can travel that far?”

  “You’re so irrita
ble that you must be getting better. All right, you can attend since I’ll be there to watch you.”

  “How comforting.”

  The other councilors applauded when Phileas entered the room. “Good to see you on your feet again,” Malvern said.

  Kermit called the meeting to order. The first topic on the agenda was the assassination.

  “Guardian, we beg you to announce the death penalty for anyone convicted of this crime,” Snurf Noswan said.

  “As Nathan said, we can’t sink to the level of the animals who wantonly kill each other. Our nature is human nature, and our manner of action is reason. Nathan believed that the mind was capable of conquering all evil. I’ve healed many of the Earther disease, and I am more than willing to heal even those minds tormented with the illness of murder. However, I recommend most strongly to this Council that exile is not only too mild a punishment—”

  “It’s dangerous!” Malvern Frost boomed. “Bad enough we have Earthers crawling through our woods, probably hiding out in that cesspool called the Bazaar, maybe among us, disguised as honest citizens. We don’t need them gathering across the border, planning a violent revolution.”

  “I say execute them,” Snurf said.

  A roar of agreement rose from the other Councilors. “And I say no,” Phileas said. “We’ve never executed the worst criminals.”

  “We’ve never had an assassination attempt on our Guardian,” Malvern said. “Use some sense.”

  This oaf had the nerve to tell the Guardian of Oasis to use some sense? Anger was an undignified, unworthy emotion, especially when it spawned the wish that Malvern would fall off his chair and crack his big, empty head open on the stone floor.

  “Any decision we make is for the welfare of all citizens,” Phileas said. “I propose indefinite incarceration in maximum security. I further propose forcible mental rehabilitation, including, but not limited to electrical and surgical alteration—although this would be a last resort and one deeply regretted by all. For purposes of deterrence, though, it should be widely publicized that these extremes will be employed if necessary.”

  “I second that motion,” Daria said. “Those murderous terrorists ought to care about their brains at least as much as they care about their lives. Personally, I don’t care how we cut off the gangrene, as long as we don’t get more infection. This is a great country; we will not be destroyed from without or from within.”