by Edward Aubry
His thick, snakelike tail was ornamented with a row of little fins. His head was wide and long, from flared (and smoking) nostrils to the crest in the back that lifted just a bit before ending in two short, curved horns. His colossal black eyes were mounted under bony protective ridges. His skin was not the pebbly, scaly skin of a snake or lizard, but, Harrison was surprised to see, a coat of genuine scales, each one the size of a human hand. Harrison could hear them scrape against each other as the dragon moved. It was formidable armor plating, and he imagined a natural enemy that would require him to have such a defense. The scales were red when viewed in one direction and green in another. Iridescence, it seemed, was the natural state of all magical creatures.
Harrison took all of this in. He pieced it together in his mind. It coalesced for him. Down to every detail, this dragon looked exactly like he expected a dragon to look. This was the archetypical dragon, the quintessence of dragonness. He was Smaug, as Harrison had pictured him from The Hobbit. He was Draco, from Dragonheart, but with some of the obvious (to Harrison) flaws corrected. He looked so much like what Harrison thought the perfect dragon should look like that his image triggered a flurry of questions. Harrison was forced to confront, again, the real and horrible possibility that Gustav was a hallucination. If he were going to imagine a dragon, after all, this would be it. He had just begun to open himself to the idea that Glimmer was real, and now she had a friend who might well imply that she was not. Then another possibility suggested itself. Perhaps this was what a dragon looked like. Perhaps on some deep, submerged level, the idea of dragons that was part of his cultural consciousness came from a true source. Somehow, people just knew what dragons were. The implications of that idea were daunting. Still, he preferred it to the alternative.
"Hey!" Glimmer was no longer whispering. "Come on!" She stared at him impatiently. So did Gustav.
Gustav had stopped eating. He was inspecting Harrison, turning his head from one side to the other, focusing on Harrison one eye at a time. Harrison couldn't help but wonder what information one eye gave that the other did not, but he refrained from asking. Then Gustav lowered his snout to the ground and looked at Harrison straight on.
"Hello," Harrison heard himself say.
"I thought you vould be taller," said the dragon. His voice was loud and deep, and even from a distance Harrison could smell his breath. He struggled not to cringe. He immediately noticed that Gustav spoke with an accent. It was something eastern European, Harrison thought, but he couldn't place it. Several half-formed ideas vied for the role of possible response to being called short. The one question that bubbled to the surface was, in Harrison's opinion, the most immediate, most pragmatic.
"Do you eat people?" He stole a glance at Glimmer. She clapped one had to her forehead.
"Ach!" said Gustav. He reared up, and Harrison got his first good look at just how big this dragon was. It felt like meeting a living skyscraper. Maybe he had asked the wrong question. "No," said the dragon in a cordial voice. He patted his stomach. "I'm stuffed."
This was not quite the reassuring reply Harrison had hoped for. Gustav looked down at him again in silence, waiting for a response as Harrison fumbled for anything appropriate to say. He did not want to calculate the dreary unlikelihood of being able to outrun those wings.
"Is joke," the dragon said.
Harrison took a few seconds to process that. "Ah," he said. "Right. That's … ah, that's good."
Gustav brought his head down and walked to Harrison on all four legs. He moved like a cat. He came to within about ten feet and stopped. "Ja," he said. "I eat people."
"Oh, shit," Harrison whispered.
"I don't eat you, though. You been vouched for."
Harrison looked at Glimmer. She grinned.
As Gustav continued to study him, Harrison, who had no idea how to behave under the gaze of a dragon, stood still and tried not to feel like food. It occurred to him that it would be useful to know just how many dragons were out and about. It wouldn't be likely that Glimmer would be able to vouch for him to all of them. Trying to think of a subtle way to ask this, he seized the opportunity Gustav's accent provided.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he said. He hoped, too late, that this did not sound patronizing, but Gustav showed no sign that he took offense. Instead, he looked up, and stared over Harrison's head at something behind him. Harrison wasn't sure whether to turn around or wait for Gustav to answer him. He held still. Glimmer seemed to be experiencing the same dilemma, which she solved by turning her head back and forth.
At length, Gustav spoke. "No," he said. "No, I am not." He stare for a few more minutes. "I had a cave," he added. "Deep in the heart of Prussia. It vas perfect. Is gone now."
Hearing this, Harrison understood that Gustav wasn't staring. He was pining. Beyond Harrison's shoulder was the east. This dragon had come a long way. More than that. The Kingdom of Prussia had not been a distinct political entity for almost a century, which meant that Gustav hadn't merely come across the sea; he had come from another world. Like Glimmer. Like himself, Harrison conceded. He had lost his world and was no doubt trying to find his place in the new world before him. It astonished Harrison that he was capable of feeling sympathy for a dragon.
"You could come with us," said Glimmer. Harrison looked at her. She bobbed up and down in excitement. "We're-"
"Glimmer!" Harrison stepped back a couple paces. "May I have a word, please?"
She stopped bobbing. Was this going to turn into another minor conflict? She flew closer to his face, but she looked confused and disappointed rather than angry. "What's the matter?" she whispered. Harrison had no idea whether Gustav could hear them, but he took a chance.
"Are you willing to vouch for Claudia?" he whispered back.
"Sure." She gave him a cheery grin.
"What about anyone else we might meet along the way? What about everyone in-" He caught himself. "Where we're going?"
"Oh." The pixie gave this a moment's reflection. "I didn't think of that."
"If it's all right with you, I'd rather not have anyone I meet get eaten," he whispered back. "Don't get me wrong. I'm sure Gustav is a wonderful-"
"I can't," said Gustav.
The sound of his voice was sudden and loud. It startled Harrison, who forgot what he had been about to say to the pixie. He turned back to the dragon. "You can't?"
Gustav looked away and gave an enormous shrug. "Vell, I don't vant to, really," he admitted. "I came here looking for other dragons. Instead, I found zese." He indicated the dinosaur corpse. "Dey taste good. I'm happy here. And I'm tired. I don't vant to start over again."
Harrison nodded, hoping his relief was not obvious. The truth was, he did like the dragon. Once he got past his fear, he had to admit Gustav made quite an impression. He wished it were possible to get to know him better, as he did not consider it out of the question that they could even become friends. But he had a greater responsibility now. There were people out there, and he couldn't gamble with their lives. "That's all right," he said. "We understand."
Gustav looked at them with sad eyes. "Ja," he said. "Me, too."
Chapter Eight
Questions
"So," Glimmer was asking, "who made all the decisions?" She and Harrison were riding westward in a station wagon Harrison had found at a rest stop (a real rest stop, this time). The discovery of the highway and the car, as he predicted, was saving them many days' travel time. If the road held out, he estimated they would be in Buffalo well before sundown. After that point, even if the road gave out, it would be a simple, if time-consuming, task to follow the lakes. As long as they kept a huge body of water to their right at all times, they would walk straight to Chicago. Eventually.
Harrison shrugged. "It was a democracy," he said. "The people made the decisions."
Glimmer eyed him with suspicion. "Oh, come on." She wore a blue denim jacket with the stylized B on the pocket over a pink shirt and bell-bottom blue jeans with the cu
ffs rolled up. No shoes.
"Well, okay," he admitted. "It was a representative government, not a true democracy. Still, the president, the senate, the house of reps, the governors, the state legislatures, they were all elected, which meant we could choose leaders who would make the decisions we would have made. So the people had a hand in the decisions, if not really a voice."
"That's stupid," she opined. "Wouldn't people just lie to get elected? Then do whatever they wanted once they were in power?"
Harrison sighed. "I know it sounds dumb, but even though most of the politicians were liars, the system was honest."
"Mmm hmm." She thought for a minute. "Who did you vote for?"
"The loser, usually."
"Okay," said the pixie. "That's good enough. Your turn."
"All right, I'll follow a political question with another political question."
"Fire away."
He began with a preamble. "You had a king."
"Oberon."
"Right. Oberon. And he ruled over all the pixies and fairies and … gnomes?"
The pixie shook her head. "Gnomes are anarchists."
"Oh. Uhh," he was frowning in thought. "Um, oh! Brownies!"
She nodded, smiling. "And …?"
"Wait. Um …"
"And elves and sprites," she finished.
"Elves," he said with a knowing nod, "and sprites."
"Mm hmm?"
"So. Oberon makes all the rules. Let's say a sprite goes rogue-"
"Never happen."
Harrison pursed his lips and tried to be patient about Glimmer completely missing the point. "Okay, let's say it's a brownie."
"Ooooh!" She was scandalized. "A rogue brownie! Yeah?"
"Well, what would happen? What kind of law enforcement did you have? Were there little police? Little prisons?" He hoped the question did not sound like mockery. From her troubled look, he wasn't sure.
She looked deflated. "Um. Well … he would … if we ever broke a rule …" She looked disturbed, and as she struggled to finish the sentence, Harrison again felt the frustration of his inability to find her boundaries. "He would play tricks on us."
Harrison waited for the other shoe to drop. Then he realized that it had. "Tricks?" His cheek muscles tried to smirk, but he managed to curve them into a smile.
"Don't laugh!" she cried. "It was humiliating!" He struggled to straighten his face, she pouted, then she remembered to add, "I hear."
"Your turn," he offered, eager, for her sake, to change the subject.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightening at once. "I've got one! Bicycles!"
Harrison waited for the question. "Bicycles?"
"When you ride a bicycle, why don't you fall over all the time?" She seemed genuinely baffled.
"Oh, Ahhh, that's actually a physics question. I used to know this." He paused, composing his answer. Then he gave up. "Crap. It's either something to do with the wheels generating force vectors perpendicular to gravity or where you place the steering axis relative to the front wheel. I swear I used to know this. I learned it in college. I almost minored in physics, you know, until I had run-in with the department head." He looked at Glimmer, whose blank stare did not reveal how far back he lost her.
"We'll just file that under 'something to do with physics,'" she said, "and move on. Your turn again."
"How does magic work?"
"Wow," said Glimmer, perhaps considering the question for the first time. "Um, gee. Well, um, it just does. You may as well ask how a light bulb works."
"Take a tungsten filament," Harrison began, "and run electricity through it. It converts most of the energy to heat, but it also generates light. Enclose it in a vacuum so it doesn't catch on fire, and voilà! Light bulb."
"Oh," she said in a quiet voice. "Um, I mean … it would be like asking someone who didn't know."
"Yes, well … it's my turn again, and you still owe me the answer about magic."
"Foul!" she cried. "I didn't ask about the light bulb! Besides, your bicycle answer hardly counted."
"You said you would count it."
"I take it back."
Harrison made a face.
"Okay." She surrendered. "You can take another turn, but I can't owe you the answer about magic, because I really don't understand a lot about it. Magic is something I use almost entirely by intuition. And the stuff I do understand …" She paused. "Well, no offense, but you really don't have the vocabulary to discuss it."
"All right." He was disappointed. "Then I'm going to try this one again. How do you get your clothes on over your wings?"
"They're intersubstantial," she said.
Harrison stared. He hadn't expected a straight answer and was still unsure if she had given him one.
"You know," she added, "like an angel's halo."
Harrison let that settle. "Pretend for a moment," he probed, "that I have no idea what that means."
Glimmer frowned. "Which part?"
"Interwhatever. And the thing about the angel."
"Um, okay. Intersubstantial means between states of being, sort of. Somewhere between real and imaginary." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "It also means stuff can't touch it. The angel part means that you can't touch his halo. He can put on a hat, or whatever, and the halo doesn't move. I thought people knew stuff about angels." She seemed surprised at this hole in his education.
He shook his head. "I always thought the halo thing was, I don't know, a metaphor or something." In truth, he had always thought angels themselves were metaphors.
Glimmer shook her head. "No, they're made out of pure Divine Glory. Intersubstantial, but literal."
"Okay," he said, "so what are your wings made of?"
"Mischief, mostly." She gave him one of her big, toothy grins. "And glee."
"Wait." He scratched his head. "If they're intangible, how do they beat against the air?"
She was shocked. "Against the air? What, like a bird? Do you have any idea how much drag that would create?"
Harrison was starting to feel out of sorts. "Now you're losing me. How do they work? Really?"
"They beat against the ether, of course." Then, barely audible (but, Harrison realized, by the nature of her speaking voice, intentionally so), "Thought I was a bird."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm still running on a physical world paradigm over here." He frowned. "Speaking of which, how is it that you understand aerodynamics, but you don't know how a bicycle stays up?"
She gave him a baffled look. "They really don't have anything to do with each other." She tapped her chin. "Now, counting, 'how do they work,' you just got two turns. So there."
Harrison grinned. "Fine. Your turn."
"Fine," she echoed. Then she shifted to a far more serious tone. "Tell me about Claudia."
"Foul!" For the first time since the game began, he was suddenly uncomfortable. "The questions were supposed to be about what it was like before."
"Unless you can prove that she wasn't here before, she's fair game." She folded her hands under her chin and glared at him, her lips curved into a wicked smile.
Harrison squirmed in his seat. "I don't know anything about her," he admitted after a long minute. "I heard her voice for the first time the day before I met you. Everything I know about her, I get from her broadcasts, and she doesn't share much." He thought for another minute. "About herself, that is." He left unspoken the fact that she hadn't shared much about anything else, either. He knew where she was, but not what to expect when he got there. He reflected on how easy it had been for him to trust Claudia, whom he did not know, and how hard it had been to trust Glimmer, who had never left his side.
"All right," the pixie continued, her smile growing wickeder. "What do you think she's like?"
Harrison smiled. "I think she's the most beautiful woman I'll ever meet. Mid-twenties. Tall, leggy, wavy blonde hair all the way down to her butt. An incredible body. I think she's a Harvard graduate, with a degree in, oh, philosophy or something." He paused to cr
aft and refine his ideal Claudia. "She has a dog, extremely well behaved, show quality. Something expensive … I don't know breeds. On weekends, she paints, mostly landscapes, but also portraits of her friends. She knows all the answers in every edition of Trivial Pursuit and can even tell you which ones they got wrong. She plays the violin like a virtuoso, but gave it up to follow her heart and be the guitarist in a rock band." His eyes took on a glazed look. "And there is nothing, but nothing sexier than her up on stage with that guitar."
Glimmer let him bask for a little bit. She said nothing, perhaps waiting for more, perhaps having heard enough.
Harrison sighed. "Or," his voice was flatter, "she's a housewife. Lonely, sad." He let that image roll around, too. "Misses her kids."
Glimmer blinked as Harrison lurched from adolescent fantasy to melancholy without any transition. In that moment, she broke the silence. "What do you hope she's like?" she asked. The smile was gone. The question was tender.
He was quiet for a while. Her probe took him somewhere he wasn't ready to go. The tone of the game was spinning away from their intent, and he tried to find a way to nudge it back. Without success. The silence grew. Glimmer respected it, either out of a desire to be tasteful, or (Harrison guessed) out of nervousness. Well after the point when he could give an answer without it being awkward, he added one word. "Human."
And having come up for that gasp of air, the conversation went under for the last time. Harrison did not offer his next question. Glimmer did not prompt him to do so. Absorbed in the final topic now, he assumed that Glimmer was being silent out of respect. Her back was to him, and he watched her wings open and close. He imagined she was being considerate in her quietude and was grateful that there would be no challenge to his theory because he couldn't see her eyes.
* * *
They made camp on the grassy median. The plan was to drive as long as possible and sleep in the back of the car, but late in the afternoon they discovered a huge gap in the road. It was at least two hundred feet across and a hundred feet deep, a crack that went well beyond the road itself on both sides and looked like a miniature canyon. It was rocky, but not too sheer, so Harrison could climb it with ease. The car lacked that skill, however, so they abandoned it.
