by Jane Yolen
And then the hero, on his knees, under the canopy of trees, showed them how to bend the wood, soaking it in water to make it flex, binding it with the rags. He ignored the girls who stood behind him to watch his shoulders ripple as he worked.
The fisherman’s son soon got the hang of it, as did the cooper’s eldest daughter. Rosemary was best, grumbling at the waste of good cloth, but also proud that her fingers could so nimbly wrap the wood.
They made rounded links, the first twice as large as a man, then descending in size to the middle whose circumference was that of Great Tom’s bow. From there the links became smaller till the last was a match for the priest’s dinner plate.
“We could play at rings,” suggested Sage brightly. Only the fisherman’s son laughed.
All the while Tansy sat, crosslegged, plaiting a rope. She used the trailing vines that snaked down from the trees and added horse hair that she culled from the local herd. She borrowed hemp and line from the fisherman’s wife, but she did the braiding herself, all the while whispering a charm against the unknitting of bones.
It took a full day, but at last the links were made and stacked and Lancot called the villagers to him. “Well done,” he said, patting the smallest boy on the head. Then he sent the lot of them home.
Only Tansy remained behind. “That was indeed well done,” she said.
“It was easy done,” he said. “There is nothing to fear in the making of a kite. But once it is finished, I will be gone.”
“A hero does what a hero can,” answered Tansy. “We ask no more than that.” But she did not stop smiling, and Lancot took up her smile as his own.
They walked along the path together towards the house but, strange to say, they were both quite careful not to let their hands meet or to let the least little bit of their clothing touch. They only listened to the nightjar calling and the erratic beating of their own timid hearts.
The next morning, before the sun had picked out a path through the interlacing of trees, the villagers had assembled the links into the likeness of a great worm. Lancot painted a dragon’s face on the largest round and colored in the rest like the long, sinewy body and tail.
The boys placed the poisoned arrowheads along the top arch of the links like the ridge of a dragon’s neck. The girls tied sharpened sticks beneath, like a hundred unsheathed claws.
Then the priest blessed the stick-and-paper beast, saying:
Fly with the hopes of men to guide you,
Fly with the heart of a hero to goad you,
Fly with the spirit of God to guard you,
Blessings on you, beak and tail.
Tansy made a hole in the drache’s mouth, which she hemmed with a white ribbon from her own hope chest. Through that hole she strung a single long red rope. To one end of the rope she knotted a reed basket, to the other she looped a handle.
“What is the basket for?” asked May-Ma. “Why do we do this? Where will it get us? And will it bring dear Da back home?”
Rosemary and Sage comforted her, but only Tansy answered her. “It is the hero’s plan,” she said.
And with that May-Ma and all the villagers, whose own questions had rested in hers, had to be content.
Then with all the children holding the links, they marched down to the farthest shore. There, on the strand, where the breezes shifted back and forth between one island and the next, they stretched out the great kite, link after link, along the sand.
Lancot tested the strings, straightening and untwisting the line. Then he wound up the guy string on Rosemary’s shuttle. Looking up into the sky, one hand over his eyes, he saw that for miles there were no clouds. Even the birds were down. It was an elegant slate on which to script their challenge to the great worm.
“Links up!” he cried. And at that signal, the boys each grabbed a large link, the girls the smaller ones, and held them over their heads.
“Run from me,” Lancot cried.
And the children began to run, pulling the great guy rope taut between them as they went.
Meanwhile Lancot and the village men held fast to the unwinding end, tugging it up and over their own heads.
Then the wind caught the links, lifting them into the air, till the last, smallest part of the tail was up. And the beekeeper’s littlest daughter, who was holding it, was so excited, she forgot to let go and was carried up and away.
“I will catch you,” cried the fisherman’s son to her, and she let go after a bit and fell into his arms. Sage watched admiringly, and touched him on the arm, and he was so red with hope he let the child tumble out of his hands.
The wind fretted and goaded the kite, and the links began to swim through the air, faster and higher, in a sinuous dance; up over their outstretched hands, over the tops of trees, until only the long red rope curling from the mouth lay circling both ends on the ground.
“Make it fast,” commanded Lancot, and the men looped the great guy around the trunk of an old, thick willow, once, twice, and then a third time for luck. Then the fisherman knotted the end and the priest threw holy water on it.
“And now?” asked Rosemary.
“And now?” asked the priest.
“And now?” echoed the rest of the villagers.
“And now you must all run off home and hide,” said Lancot, for it was what Tansy had rehearsed with him.
“The dragon will be here within the day.”
“But what is the basket for?” asked May-Ma. “And why do we do this? And where will it get us? And will it bring your dear Da back?” This last she asked to Tansy, who was guiding her down the path.
But there were no answers and so no comfort in it. All the villagers went home. Tansy alone returned to find Lancot pacing by the shore.
“I thought you would be gone,” she said.
“I will be.” His voice was gruff, but it broke between each word.
“Then the next work is mine,” said Tansy.
“I will help.” His eyes said there would be no argument.
He followed her along the shoreline till they came to the place where the river flowed out, the blue-white of the swift running water meeting the lapis of the sea. Tansy turned upstream, wading along the water’s edge. That left Lancot either the deeper water or the sand. He chose the water.
Tansy questioned him with a look.
He shrugged. “I would not have you fall in,” he said.
“I can swim,” she answered.
“I cannot.”
She laughed and skipped onto the sand. Relieved, Lancot followed.
Suddenly Tansy stopped. She let slip the pocket of woven reeds she had tied at her waist. “Here,” she said, pointing.
Between the sturdy brown cattails and the spikes of wild rice was a strangely sown pattern of grassy weeds, bloody red in color, the tops embroidered with florets of pearl and pink.
“That is dragon’s bane?” Lancot asked. “That pretty bouquet? That is for our greatest need?” He snorted and bent and brushed a finger carelessly across one petal. The flower seared a bloody line across his skin. “Ow!” he cried and stuck a finger in his mouth.
“Best put some aloe on that,” Tansy said, digging around in her apron pocket.
Lancot shook his head. Taking his finger from his mouth he said quickly, “No bother. It is just a little sting.” Then he popped the finger back in.
Tansy laughed. “I have brought my mitts this time. Fireweed burns only flesh. I, too, have felt that sting.” She held up her hand and he could see a string of little rounded, faded scars across her palm. “Dragons are made of flesh—under the links of mail.”
Lancot reached out with his burned finger and touched each scar gently, but he did not say a word.
Taking her mitts from a deep apron pocket, Tansy drew them on. Then she grasped the fireweed stems with one hand, the flowers with the other, and snapped the blossoms from the green stalk. Little wisps of smoke rose from her mitts, but did not ignite. She put each cluster into her bag.
&n
bsp; Lancot merely watched, alert, as if ready to help.
At last the bag was pouched full of flowers.
“It is enough,” Tansy said, stripping the mitts from her hands.
Back at the beach, Tansy lowered the flying basket carefully and stuffed it full of the bane. As she hauled on the rope, sending the basket back aloft, a steady stream of smoke poured through the wicker, a hazy signal written on the cloudless sky.
“Now we wait,” said Tansy.
“Now we wait under cover,” said Lancot. He led her to a nearby narrow gulch and pulled branches of willow across from bank to bank. Then he slipped under the branches, pulling Tansy after.
“Will we have to wait long?” Tansy mused, more to herself than to Lancot.
Before he could answer, they heard a strange loud chuffing, a foreign wind through trees, and smelled a carrion stink. And though neither of them had ever heard that sound before or smelled that smell, there was no mistaking it.
“Dragon,” breathed Lancot.
“Vermifax major,” said Tansy.
And then the sky above them darkened as the great mailed body, its stomach links scratched and bloodstained from lying on old bones, put out their sun.
Instinctively, they both cringed beneath the lacy willow leaves until the red rudder of tail sailed over. Tansy even forgot to breathe, so that when the worm was gone from sight and only the smell lingered, she drew a deep breath and nearly choked on the stench. Lancot clapped his hand so hard over her mouth he left four marks on the left side of her face and a red thumbprint high on the right cheek bone. Her only protest was to place her hand gently on his wrist.
“Oh, Tansy, forgive me, I am sorry I hurt you.” Lancot bit his lip. “My strength is greater than I supposed.”
“I am not sorry,” she answered back. “This …” she brushed her fingers across her face, “this is but a momentary pain. If that great beast had heard me and had hurt you, the pain would go on and on and on forever.”
At that moment they heard a tremendous angry scream of defiance and a strange rattling sound.
“The dragon must have seen our kite,” whispered Tansy. “And like all great single beasts, he kills what he cannot court.”
Lancot shifted a willow branch aside with great care, and they both blinked in the sudden light of sky. High above them the red dragon was challenging the drache, voice and tail making statements that no self-respecting stranger would leave unanswered. But the kite remained mute.
The dragon screamed again and dived at the kite’s smallest links, severing the last two. As the links slipped through the air, twisting and spiraling in the drafts made by the dragon’s wings, the beast turned on the paper-and-stick pieces and swallowed them in a single gulp. Then, with a great surprised belch, the worm vomited up the pieces again. Crumpled, broken, mangled beyond repair, they fell straight down into the sea.
The dragon roared again, this time snapping at the head of the kite. The roar was a mighty wind that whipped the kite upward, and so the dragon’s jaws closed only on the rope that held the basket of fireweed, shredding the strand. The basket and half the rope fell lazily through the air and, with a tiny splash, sank beneath the waves. At once, a high frantic hissing bubbled up through the water, and the sea boiled with the bane.
“It’s gone,” Tansy whispered. “The bane. It’s gone.” Without giving a thought for her own safety, she clambered out of the gulch and, bent over, scuttled to the trees, intent on fetching more of the precious weed. The dragon, concentrating on its skyborne foe, never saw her go.
But Lancot did, his hand reaching out too late to clutch the edge of her skirt as it disappeared over the embankment. “Tansy, no!”
She made no sign she had heard, but entered the trees and followed the stream quickly to the muddle of water and reeds that held the rest of the bane. Wading in, she began to snatch great handfuls of the stuff, heedless of the burns, until she had gathered all there was to find. Then she struggled ashore and raced back. Her wet skirts tangled in her legs as she ran.
Lancot, caught in a panic of indecision, had finally emerged from their hiding place and stared alternately at the sky and the path along the sea. When Tansy came running back, hands seared and smoking but holding the fireweed, he ran to her.
“I have gathered all there is,” she said, only at the last letting her voice crack with the pain.
Lancot reached for the weed.
“No,” Tansy whispered hoarsely, “take the mitts from my pocket.” She added miserably, “I was in such a hurry, I forgot to put them on. And then I was in too much pain to do other.”
Lancot grabbed the mitts from her pocket and forced them onto his large hands. Then he took the weed from her. She hid her burned hands behind her back.
“How will I get these up to the dragon?” asked Lancot suddenly, for the question had not occurred to either of them before.
They turned as one and stared at the sky.
It was the dragon itself that gave them the answer then, for, as they watched, it grabbed a great mouthful of the kite and raged at it, pulling hard against the line that tethered the drache to the tree. The willow shook violently with each pull.
Lancot smiled down at Tansy. “You are no hero,” he said. “Your hands are too burned for that. And I am no hero, either. But …” His voice trembled only slightly, “as a boy I fetched many kites out of trees.” And before Tansy could stop him, he kissed her forehead, careful of the bane he carried, and whispered into her hair, “And put some hallow on those palms.”
“Aloe,” she said, but he did not hear her.
Lancot transferred the bane to one mitt, slipped the mitt off his other hand, and began to shinny one-handed up the guy rope that was anchored to the underside of the kite. If the dragon, still wrestling with the drache, felt the extra weight, it made not the slightest sign.
Twice the dragon pulled so furiously that Lancot slipped off. And then, when he was halfway up the rope, there was a huge sucking sound. Slowly the willow was pulled up, roots and all, out of the earth. And the dragon, along with the kite, the string, Lancot, and the tree, flew east towards the farthest isles.
Tansy, screaming and screaming, watched them go.
As they whipped through the air, Lancot continued his slow crawl up the rope. Once or twice the fireweed brushed his cheek and he gritted his teeth against the pain. And once a tiny floret touched his hair, and the single strand sizzled down to his scalp. The smell of that was awful. But he did not drop the weeds nor did he relinquish his hold on the guy. Up and up he inched as the dragon, its limp paper prey in its claws, pulled them towards its home.
They were closing in on the farthest island, a sandy lozenge-shape resting in the blue sea, when Lancot’s bare hand touched the bottom of the kite and the cold golden nail of the dragon’s claw. He could feel his heart hammering hard against his chest and the skin rippled faster along his shoulders and neck than ever he could have made the muscles dance. He could feel the wind whistling past his bared teeth, could feel the tears teasing from his eyes. He remembered Tansy’s voice saying “I can swim,” and his own honest reply. Smiling ruefully, he thought, “I shall worry about that anon.” Then he slipped his arm around the dragon’s leg, curved his legs up and around, until he could kneel. He dared not look down again.
He stood and at last the dragon seemed to take notice of him. It clenched and unclenched its claw. The kite and tree fell away, tumbling—it seemed—forever till they plunged into the sea, sending up a splash that could be seen from all the islands.
Lancot looked up just in time to see the great head of the beast bend curiously around to examine its own feet. It was an awkward move in the air, and for a moment worm and man plummeted downward.
Then the dragon opened its great furnace jaws, the spikes of teeth as large as tree trunks, as sharp as swords.
Lancot remembered his boyhood and the games of sticks and balls. He snatched up the fireweed with his ungloved hand and, ignoring t
he sting of it, flung the lot into the dragon’s maw.
Surprised, the dragon swallowed, then straightened up and began to roar.
Lancot was no fool. He put the mitt over his eyes, held his nose with his burned hand, and jumped.
On shore, Tansy had long since stopped screaming to watch the precarious climb. Each time Lancot slipped she felt her heart stutter. She prayed he might drop off before the dragon noticed, until she remembered he could not swim.
When he reached the dragon’s foot, Tansy was wading into the water, screaming once again. Her aloe-smeared hands had left marks on her skirts, on her face.
And when the tree and kite fell, she felt her hopes rise until she saw that Lancot was not with them. She prayed then, the only prayer she could conjure up, the one her mother had spoken:
Fire and water on thy wing,
The curse of god in beak and flight.
It seemed to her much too small a prayer to challenge so great and horrible a beast.
And then the dragon turned on itself, curling round to look at Lancot, and they began to tumble towards the sea.
At that point Tansy no longer knew what prayers might work. “Fly,” she screamed. “Drop,” she screamed.
No sooner had she called out the last then the dragon straightened out and roared so loudly she had to put her hands over her ears, heedless of the aloe smears in her hair. Then as she watched, the great dragon began to burn. Its body seemed touched by a red aureole and flames flickered the length of its body, from mouth to tail. Quite suddenly, it seemed to go out, guttering like a candle, from the back forward. Black scabs fell from its tail, its legs, its back, its head. It turned slowly around in the air, as if each movement brought pain, and Tansy could see its great head. Only its eyes held life till the very end when, with a blink, the life was gone. The dragon drifted, floated down onto a sandbar, and lay like a mountain of ash. It was not a fierce ending but rather a gigantic sigh, and Tansy could not believe how unbearably sad it made her feel, as if she and the dragon and Lancot, too, had been cheated of some reward for their courage. She thought, quite suddenly, of a child’s balloon at a fair pricked by a needle, and she wept.
