by W. D. Newman
CHAPTER 19
DRAGON'S CRADLE
The dragon ate upon the tree for about an hour. Once it had its fill of ashes, it flew off into the night, but its fires lingered until dawn. No one slept that night and they were all extremely tired. Hob was not even enthusiastic about breakfast and solemnly chewed his biscuits with a worried expression.
“You didn’t get to answer my question,” said Ben, breaking the silence with a question to Gabriel.
“Oh? What question?”
“You said that you sometimes felt that we’d be better off without prophecies and I asked you how so?”
“Ah, yes,” said Gabriel. “I remember. It was dark talk for a dark night, nothing more.”
“Please, tell me what you meant,” Ben persisted.
Gabriel paused a moment to reflect and then looked over at Ben. “What choices would we make without foreknowledge of certain events? What would the outcome of our decisions be? These prophecies make me feel as if our destinies are pre-determined, regardless of the choices we make, and that does not sit well with me.”
“That’s interesting. We think about the same things in my world too.”
“You have prophecies in your world?”
“Oh yes, many prophecies from many different people, from many different beliefs.”
“Do they all come true?”
“That’s a tough one to answer,” Ben replied, standing up and stretching. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and cupped his chin in his hand while he pondered the question. “I think most prophecies are vague and mysterious so that they are open to interpretation. One person may think a prophecy has been fulfilled because it means one thing to him, whereas another person may think the very same prophecy has not been fulfilled because he thinks it means something entirely different. But as far as the prophecies associated with my beliefs; I am pretty sure they do come true, but I don’t think all of them have been fulfilled yet.”
“You have a final prophecy in your world?”
“Sorta.” Ben dug Casey’s cell phone out of his pocket and turned it on. The battery was down to forty percent now, but this wouldn’t take long. “We have this book called the Bible. It is a collection of writings and each writing within the Bible is called a book. Casey has a copy of it here on her phone. The last book in the Bible is called Revelations. This book contains prophecies about the end of times. I guess you could say it is our final prophecy. Anyhow, let me read you some of it so that you can see what I’m talking about.”
Ben brought the app up and flipped his thumb to scroll the display to the book of Revelations. He flipped his thumb on the chapter dial and flipped it again on the verse dial so that he would select something totally random. “Okay, listen to this. This is chapter twelve, verse three…”
And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
“What does it mean?” asked Gabriel.
“I really don’t know,” Ben answered. “I think different people interpret it to mean different things.”
“I know exactly what it means,” said Hob, slinging his pack across his shoulder. “It means all dragons are evil. Let’s get moving, please. I want to get to the Cradle and back before nightfall. After what happened last night, I will NOT be sleeping out in the open.”
Gabriel crept out into the bright morning sunshine and scanned the surrounding area. There were no signs of dragons anywhere that he could sense. At least now they knew for sure that it was the time of The Ashing here on Crag, although they did not know how far they were into the thousand year period. From the looks of things, they must be nearing The Slumber because nothing green or living could be detected anywhere in this barren landscape.
“Come on out, the way is clear.”
Ben and Hob came out of Old Grand Sire. Hob looked around nervously while Ben walked around to the west side of the tree. Fortunately, the tree trunk was still plenty tall enough to cast a long dark shadow on the ground.
“Well, at least we will not have to travel to the river and add an extra day to our journey,” said Ben, pointing to the shadow.
“We know the direction we need to take,” said Hob, “but men and dwarves alike tend to move in a circle when traveling a long distance without any navigational aids.”
“We could use line-of-sight on distant objects,” said Ben. It was a trick he had learned in cub scouts when he was younger. “You pick an object in the distance, in the direction you are traveling, and walk to that object. When you get there, you push a sharp stick in the ground so that the object you sighted on falls between the stick and an object back at the original starting point. This gives you another straight line of travel. Then, all you do is pick another distant object along that line and repeat the process all over.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Gabriel. “I can keep us in a reasonably straight line while we are moving. Come, follow me. Let’s get to the Cradle as quickly as possible, because I am in total agreement with Hob; I do not want to spend the night out in the open here.”
Once again, the trio moved slowly and cautiously with Gabriel going first and choosing their route. However, when the sun reached its zenith Gabriel began to pick up the pace. They had to make it to the Cradle before dark. While they would not be sheltered as they were inside of Old Grand Sire, they would at least be able to stay the night in a place no dragon would frequent for a thousand years. No one spoke during the next few hours. Hob did not even ask to stop and eat. Everyone was on edge and their nerves were strung as taunt as bowstrings. When the sun began to set on the western horizon, Ben finally spoke.
“Gabriel, how much farther?”
The elf stopped and waited for Hob to catch up with them. They watched in dismay as the pale blues and evening pinks began to fade from the sky. “I think we are almost out of the forest. There appears to be a break in the tree stumps ahead, but I am not positive. I would climb one of these broken trees to see, if I weren’t afraid of catching the eye of some nearby dragon. The only thing we can do is keep moving.”
Gabriel was correct, but by the time they exited the forest, the sky above them was a dark veil of purple-black, pierced by a million glittering white stars. If Crag had a moon, it was not out tonight, but the stars lit the terrain as well as any full moon back on earth. Even Ben could see the structure in the distance. It stood on a small rise, forming a jet black silhouette against the star lit sky. Hurriedly they made their way across the open area between the forest and the outer circle of stones. They walked deeper into the strange maze-like configuration until they found some upright stones that were massive in size and capped on top with slabs of equally great size. Although this only offered them shelter on two sides, it hid them from above and gave them a small sense of security.
Hob pulled the blankets from his pack and tossed one to Ben. He dumped the rest of their food onto his blanket. Two biscuits, a small wedge of cheese, and a little bit of dried jerky. After missing lunch, he was hungry too. Especially after marching all day. “I’m afraid I did not have as much food in my pack as I thought,” he said rather sadly. “It’s not much, but it will have to do.”
“You and Ben eat it,” said Gabriel with a smile. “I really don’t think my stomach could handle another one of your biscuits anyway.”
“Hmph!” Hob replied. However, he didn’t object and immediately divided the small pile of food into two even smaller piles. “You can eat it all now or save a couple of mo
uthfuls for breakfast. We still have a two day march to get back to Fire Mountain.”
“No we don’t,” said Ben. “Once we’ve found what we are looking for, and are ready to return home, I will open a pathway to Castle Twilight.”
“Hey!” Hob exclaimed excitedly. “I never thought of that! We could be eating a piping hot breakfast tomorrow morning. As a matter of fact, you could open the pathway straight to the kitchens at Castle Twilight. Now that I’m thinking about it, why don’t you open a pathway to the kitchens right now? I’ll just pop through and grab us all something hot to eat.”
“We can’t do that,” Gabriel laughed quietly. “It requires magic to open the portal and if a dragon is nearby, there is a very good chance it would detect that magic and come to investigate. I’m afraid tonight’s meal is what you have before you, but if we find what we are looking for when the sun rises, I will cook your breakfast myself when we get back to the Twilight.”
Ben and Hob decided to eat everything and get a good night’s rest; one without hunger. They wanted to be fresh and alert tomorrow morning. None of them had a clue what they were looking for. They knew they had to be here, at the Dragon’s Cradle, but they didn’t know when they were supposed to be here. Maybe they had missed the appointed time when the wisest one was supposed to arrive? Maybe the appointed time was days away? Maybe it was even weeks or months from now? These thoughts ran through all of their minds as they prepared to spend another night on Crag. Ben and Hob curled up in their blankets, while Gabriel propped his back against one of the giant stones that sheltered them to wait for morning.
When dawn finally broke, it was strangely quiet. There were no birdsongs to greet the day, no leaves or grasses for the winds to rustle. Even the winds were quiet. Gabriel roused his two companions. The sun had not risen above the horizon yet, but it was bright enough to see clearly. Hob checked his pack one last time, hoping he might have overlooked some tidbit of food. Once he was sure it was empty of edibles, he stuffed the blankets into the pack and gave his beard a good hard yank.
“I sure hope this person we’re waiting on shows up soon,” the grumpy dwarf complained. “Last night’s meal wasn’t enough to feed a fairy and I’m practically starving.”
“Let’s have a look around,” said Gabriel. “There may be a clue lying about somewhere that will speed us on our way or tell us what to do next.”
“Hey guys,” said Ben. “I think I know this place.”
Gabriel and Hob looked at him funny.
“What do you mean?” asked Hob. “You couldn’t possibly know this place.”
“Well, maybe not this particular place, but reminds me of another place, back on earth, that is very much like this. Can we walk out into the field and look at it from the outside?”
“Yes,” Gabriel answered, “but let’s wait until the sun is up and shining brightly. There will be less chance of being spotted by a dragon during the daylight.”
Ben and Gabriel waited two hours. They would have waited a little longer, but neither could endure Hob’s complaints about being hungry for another minute. Actually, the dwarf’s stomach was beginning to rumble so loudly they were becoming concerned that any nearby dragons might hear it, so they decided to go ahead and walk out into the open field to give Ben a better view of the Cradle. In the daylight and standing back far enough to take it all in, Ben had only to look at the Cradle once to know why it had seemed so familiar.
“Holy cow! I knew I had seen this before!”
“What?” Hob exclaimed. The poor dwarf began yanking on his beard again. “Are you going to tell us or not?”
“Stonehenge,” Ben answered. “There is a place like this on Earth and it is called Stonehenge. It is not in great shape like this one, but it is the same structure.”
“Are you certain,” asked Gabriel.
“I’m positive.”
“What do you think it means?”
Ben looked up at the elf. “I think I’m supposed to open a pathway from here to Stonehenge. I don’t know why, but it’s just a feeling I have. A real strong feeling.”
“Can you do that?”
“I’ve never been to Stonehenge, but I know where it’s at and I’ve seen tons of pictures of it. I opened a pathway from Camelot to Crag using one map and one drawing, so I should be able to open a pathway from here to Stonehenge. It’s one of the most photographed places on earth.”
“What does that mean?” asked Hob.
“Pictures,” Ben answered. “Like the ones I showed you on Casey’s cell phone. There are thousands of pictures of Stonehenge.”
“Well, open the pathway and let’s see what happens!”
Ben glanced at Gabriel and the elf nodded.
“Okay, but let’s go into the center of the circle before we open it. I don’t like being out in the open like this.”
The three hurried back to the Cradle and made their way to the birthing stone.
“The stone is supposed to be magic,” said Hob. “Why don’t you crawl up on top of it and open the pathway from there.”
“Do you think I’m supposed too?” asked Ben.
“How the heck should I know? Just seems the proper thing to do since we’re here.”
“Hob may be right,” said Gabriel. “Here, let me help you up.”
The elf hoisted Ben up onto the birthing stone and handed him the staff.
“Here goes,” said Ben, holding the staff up. “Stand back a little.”
Gabriel and Hob backed away from the birthing stone. Once Ben felt they were safely out of the way, he closed his eyes and began to form a mental picture Stonehenge. It wasn’t difficult, because he had really seen hundreds of pictures of the place. He was having trouble coming up with new words though and it took him a minute to come up with something new to say. He gripped the staff tightly and cried out, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!”
The pathway opening materialized at the other end of the birthing stone, an impenetrable black hole that the rebuked the bright Crag sunshine and gave no hint of what lay within. Gabriel leapt up on top of the stone and pulled Hob up behind him.
“What do we do now?” Hob asked. “Do we go in?”
Ben never got a chance to answer.
*****
