Becoming the Dragon

by Alex Sapegin

  Hooray! I spoke! Now, I won’t shut up! It’s bursting forth from me incessantly. Judging by Jaga’s face, she’s fantasizing about how to keep me quiet. I’m constantly changing voice modulation. Now, I can sing in falsetto and bass; dragons’ vocal cords are surprisingly flexible and are made up of several stages, yielding the full sonic palette, from ultra to infrasonic. Finally, Jagirra’s not holding back anymore and swats me on the horns. I expressed my great desire for something that can warm me. After all, feeling like you’re freezing alive for yet another week wouldn’t be very pleasant. Jaga slapped her forehead and said, “How is it I forgot about that!” and got after Dad to take her out to the countryside. It’s been three thousand years; no wonder she forgot something. Two hours later, (I can now sense the passage of time exactly), I heard the beating of wings. They were back and had brought along someone else. Jaga asked the guest to wait for a few minutes while she ran into the cave to throw a veil on me. Now, I can see magical spells, or magical interweaves, as Jaga calls them. Sometimes, they look like lace, sometimes, like strange geometric constructions. Jaga squeaked, “You can come in!” Two short men walked into the cave, and I swear their hair glowed.

  ***

  “Come in!” the Mistress called.

  Gmar straightened his jacket and gave Glir a little push. It’s supposed to be a “good” dragon, but it’s still a little scary entering its lair. The lady of the house doesn’t mind; she’s not afraid of anything.

  “Come on in already, we won’t eat you,” came the dragon’s bass. Gmar remembered flying on his back, and how his knees knocked. Holy Gorn, please don’t let me ever go through that again, not for any price! Better a rusty nail to my foot! He’d go home on foot, he decided; it was more comfortable—and not so high. The Mistress flies on him, and let her! That’s her business. But me, never! May my anvil сrack if I ever set foot on a dragon’s back again!

  “What do you…Your Selfness, need? A wall put in? Er…somethin’ else?” Gmar found the courage to say, and, pulling his brother along with him, stepped into the dark gaping mouth of the cave.

  The inside turned out to be not as scary as he had imagined. There were limestone stalagmites and a large fireplace with a kettle. There were a couple of magical lamps under the dome. There were blocks of wood instead of chairs, obviously for the Mistress; they were no good to Karegar. He had a stone couch. He wasn’t a dragon, more like a house cat. He twisted and twirled around himself, then plopped down, curling up into a ball as big as two covered wagons.

  “What do we need a wall for? We need to build a fireplace here and a chimney for warm air, and here, we need to put up a partition made of animal skins.” The elf emerged from a strange veil and indicated where everything should be. “Don’t come closer,” she stopped Glir, who had stepped toward the veil.

  “Eh…I need to see what kind of support material that is,” Glir said, embarrassed, and couldn’t help but ask, “What’s back there?”

  “A young dragon.”

  “What, another one?” Gmar looked at the elf.

  The Rauu explained. “He’s wounded. Hunters stripped him of his scales, you don’t need to see that. He’s the reason we’re putting in the partition.”

  A loud coughing sound and wheezing could be heard from behind the veil. Gmar felt sorry for the young dragon. How could they? Taking his scales from a live dragon! That’s like skinning him alive…

  “Take your measurements, but don’t go behind the veil,” the Mistress warned and disappeared behind the grayish wall.

  “What are you just standing there for? Hand me the ruler!” Gmar tugged at his brother’s sleeve.

  Glir snapped back into the moment and started fumbling around in his pockets for the long rope marked with knots. Noting his curiosity, Gmar shook his fist at his brother, making sure he wouldn’t think of breaking the Mistress’ rule. He shook his fist, but he was at the same time drawn toward the cloudy wall.

  They went about measuring for 15 minutes, calculating and estimating the best way to install a curtain of animal skins and run the flues for the fireplace, and how to install the fireplace itself, and finally thinking about the chimney. The Mistress was discussing something with the dragon behind the veil. His voice sounded pleasant, velvety, and not at all childlike. Gmar pulled a piece of leather from his pocket and a short lead pencil and made a sketch indicating the measured dimensions.

  “Okay, got it. We have bricks, and it be better not to hang skins, they’ll stink. We’ll let the gals know today; they can sew curtains from triple sackcloth, and we’ll lay the masonry in about two days.” Gmar carefully rolled the bit of leather into a little tube and tied it. “Let’s go.”

  “Fine.” Jagirra stepped into the light. “Karegar will fly you back.”

  “No!” Gmar said, frightened. “We’ll walk. It be not far. We’ll stretch our bones.”

  ***

  “They’re gnomes. Gnomes’ hair always glows.” Jaga explained. That woman, a watchman, the one who sold me, apparently was a gnome, too. I have to admit. Honestly, I imagined little people to be something else entirely. I shouldn’t have read so many stories and watched so many movies and cartoons. I told Jaga my doubts, and she went into fits of laughter for 10 minutes from my description. Well? I pictured them as bearded, pot-bellied little guys as wide as they were tall, gripping axes. They dig up the earth, they forged metal, they hid gold in their stashes. Here that’s not correct. But why does their hair glow? I don’t buy the line about not getting lost in the dark. Dad’s explanation—that they’re different—doesn’t clear things up for me either. I’m not gonna worry about it. I’ll figure it out later.

  I had a fight with Dad this morning; he called me A-rei. I asked him not to call me that. That stupid name; it reminds me of the enclosure and the cage. One thing led to another… Jagirra lifted the partition, and we both got caught. Now, we’re thinking about what we’ve done. I was wrong to get so steamed, probably. They don’t want to call me Andy because there is no such name in dragon; there isn’t and never has been. That name existed for sixteen years, and now it doesn’t anymore. I don’t want them to call me Andy like Mom and Irina used to call me back home. Andy means “frog” in Alat. Little Frog, Mowgli, the Jungle Book! I unexpectedly cracked up at that. In the novel, Mowgli’s name means “frog” in the wolf language, because of his lack of fur. Dad asked me the reason I was laughing so hard. Apparently, he’s stopped sulking. I explained to him about the Kipling story. I surprised myself in how carried away with it I got. Mowgli was sitting in my memory so exactly that it was as if I were reading from the book.

  The gnomes are Gmar and Glir. Jagirra told me their names yesterday. They finished building the partition and laid the foundation for the fireplace, then sat on a block of wood and listened to the story with open mouths. I stopped on the Bandar-logs, (monkey people in Hindi) when they stole Mowgli. It’s time to eat. Broth and bone meal. I’m so fed up with it! I want meat, fresh, bloody meat, perhaps still warm. Now, that sounds like my new obsession. I close my eyes, and I see a sheep, which I then sink my teeth into. My teeth have come in all the way now, by the way, and everything’s great. My chompers have taken up their rightful places, but my upper and lower fangs are still pretty short. It’s just a matter of time. And I was right about my heart. I have two of them. Jaga didn’t believe me at first… and for a long while afterward. She came up to me ten times and listened to the double pounding and looked at me with true vision. Dad was just interested in whether it was dangerous and then calmed down.

  I always want to scratch my head with the fingers on my ha—my wings. They grew up literally in one night. They don’t have the membranes yet. For now, there’s a very thin pink layer of skin with transparent patches, but I think of them as hands. It’s interesting to raise them above my back and move my loooong fingers. If you look at a wing as a human hand, then the thumb and pointer fingers can grasp, are small, and are located in the middle of the wing. The other three a
re three meters long, and the membrane is growing right between them, and between my arm and the upper edge of my back.

  Today the gnomes got here a lot earlier than they have been. They brought bricks on mules and a special clay. Gmar’s daughter came, too. He introduced her to me as Dara and tried to peek behind the veil while doing so, then immediately got a scolding from Jagirra.

  ***

  “Granny Yaga, Granny Yaga!” Dara threw herself at Jagirra. “Is it true you have a baby dragon? Can I play with him? Will he tell me a story? Papa told me a story about Mowgli yesterday, and Uncle Glir told him that that wasn’t right at all and that he had got it all mixed up. Was Mowgli really raised by wolves? And Shere Khan is like a sul or a mrown?”

  The little girl rattled off with the speed of a machine gun. Her ponytail glowed with an amber flame and seemed it would ignite for real at any second.

  Granny Yaga? Andy couldn’t help laughing to himself. It sounded just like “Baba Yaga,” a classic character of Russian children’s literature. She was a witch with a hut that stood on chicken legs. He snickered again. This morning, nothing hurt, nothing burned, and nothing itched. He was in a super mood, and the girl’s words made him smile, then laugh out loud.

  Jigarra made him explain what was so funny. Dara, clinging to the hem of Jagirra’s dress, stuck her tongue out at the veil.

  “Granny Yaga! There’s a fairy tale about you? Maybe the little dragon can tell it?” Dara immediately started in. “There aren’t any tales about anyone, and there’s one about you!” Andy once again broke into a silly, completely out-of-place laugh.

  “Granny Yaga” glanced at the gnomes, tapping away with their trowels, pretending they weren’t there and never had been. She turned to the veil, and the nice little dragon realized he was going to get swatted on the horns and in the face that evening. Karegar pretended to be asleep. As soon as Jaga took her eyes off him, one of the dragon’s eyes opened and winked a mischievous wink at Andy.

  “Yes, he can. But let the little dragon finish the story about Mowgli first,” the elf allowed, and again looked at the dragon. One more peep out of him, and she wouldn’t beat him in the face; she’d cut his tail off! Andy could feel her intentions and tucked his tail in under himself; it had become as dear to him as his memory. He saw Jagirra’s and the dragon’s glances as beams of light; the dragon’s was red and sparkling with merriment, Jagirra’s not so much.

  The gnomes wanted to hear the story of Mowgli, too. Gmar gathered up his courage and asked if they might not begin without them. They worked like machines, and the tapping of trowels never ceased for a minute. Dara helped her Granny Yaga cook soup for the “wounded” dragon, grinding up chalk and charcoal in mortars. Karegar stubbornly kept up his sleeping facade. He was not threatened by any towels now, but it was such a long day.

  ***

  When they finished their job building a fireplace, the gnomes ran to the stream to wash up. Then, entering the cave one at a time, sat down on wooden blocks.

  Andy began the story. This time, he portrayed all the characters by acting them out, trying to imitate the voices from the cartoon version. Dara jumped up and down and ran back and forth from Gmar’s arms to Glir’s. The gnomes booed at times and fidgeted in their places, worrying about Mowgli, wrapped up in the story. Jagirra’s countenance grew warmer; the cold blue ire and offense melted away. Karegar heaved a heavy sigh when the story finished with Mowgli leaving the jungle for the human village.

  “Are there other tales?” the dragon pleaded. The elf’s and the gnomes’ eyes sparkled.

  “There are,” Andy answered, “but I’ll tell you another one tomorrow.”

  “Why? I want to hear it today!” Dara began to pout.

  “Because Uncle Dragon isn’t feeling very well, and he can’t tell anymore.” A wave of cold rushed over Andy. He saw little stars floating around in front of him.

  The gnomes packed up quickly, thanked him for the interesting story, and promised to double-check their work the next morning before leaving.

  “Why am I so cold?” Andy asked Jagirra.

  “Because it’s warmer in a mother’s womb than it is outside!” she answered, dipping a huge ladle into Andy’s dinner. “Tomorrow, we’ll heat up the fireplace and wall-off your corner with a curtain. It’ll be warmer then.”

  The tale of Mowgli caused a stir among the village people. In a world without radio, television or movie theaters, the new story was met with rave reviews. And just like that, village inhabitants began to gather in the cave for story hour. Jagirra stopped preparing his porridge since compassionate peasant women brought mountains of various edibles with them for the “poor, unfortunate” little dragon. They could not care less about the elf’s insistence that none of it was allowed, and snuck over to Karegar, bombarding him with cakes, biscuits and other homemade delicacies. The kind soul in black scales quietly passed the presents over the cloudy wall. Andy scarfed everything down quicker than you could say “dragon’s feast”.

  “You’re stuffing yourself so much, your wings’ll start flapping!” Dad joked. Jaga worried that her patient was gaining weight too quickly. He sized himself up at over a ton and was still gaining by leaps and bounds. His awful internal itching had stopped, his skin was no longer cracked and got covered with scars, and the membranes on his wings had begun to roughen, but a dark bandage still covered his eyes. Andy did quite well without them. The mandatory blindness had so promoted the development of his true vision that he could scarcely tell the difference between them anymore.

  “Quie-e-et,” came from the cave entrance. “Gmar, if you keep laughing, you know what I’ll do?”

  Duke the tanner was looming over the small, bushy-haired, redheaded gnome, shaking his enormous fist. The gnome was strong, despite his short height and scrawny build. No less so than Duke, but Duke lorded his authority over him, as well as his Herculean dimensions.

  “Ow!” Someone’s toe got stepped on; mumbled swearing followed.

  People were gathering for the evening show. The gnomes had amassed a few benches for the comfort of the audience, and then a few more, and then more. Everyone living in the nearby villages who wasn’t occupied with work or housework gathered at the entrance to the cave. The new myths and fairy tales were unusual and exciting, full of adventure and danger, and there was a new story every day.

  Andy threw the last bit of pie with rabbit filling into his large hungry mouth and peeked around the veil. There was literally nowhere for an apple to fall on the benches; each one was so packed. The listeners fidgeted in their places, bumping elbows and whispering to one another. They were discussing J. R. R. Tolkien’s eternal The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, which had been told the previous day.

  Andy hobbled to the second veil Jaga had put up near the entrance to the cave and lay down on the ground. Dad covered him with several horse-cloth blankets. Andy had begun to walk right away, as soon as all the bones and joints of his pelvis and legs had formed, ignoring Jaga’s forbidding it. For now, his walks were confined to the cave, but that was sufficient to help him work his way up to full ability. He took a deep breath and began to tell the story. Silence fell on the audience from the very first sound of his voice. Only Duke shook his fist at Gmar and also at a gnome who turned to him and said, “Shhhhh!”

  Modulating his voice freely, Andy told the story using the voices of the various characters. He tried especially hard to relay all the characters’ personalities.

  “Maybe tomorrow you can do one that’s not so scary?” Gmar asked, arranging the benches after all the listeners had gone home. “Now, I’m going to be afraid of my own shadow! What if all a sudden some nether creature jumps out and bites me in the buttocks? Hammers on the anvil, they might suck me into the bellows!”

  Andy lay in the cave alone. Logs crackled happily in the fireplace, filling it with warmth and a sense of the comfort of home. Five minutes before, Karegar had taken Jagirra to a distant farm. Rum the hassan’s wife had gone into labo
r. She had climbed up onto Dad’s neck, holding on tight to the hassan’s son, a boy of seven, who had run for an hour through the woods to fetch the herbalist.

  For a long time now, Andy had wanted to conduct a certain magical experiment. He wanted it so badly the tip of his tail itched, but the elf’s constant presence and control hindered his plans. Whenever he would shake up mana from his magical sources, he noticed that beyond the thin barrier behind which his magical subsistence was found, he could sense yet another one that was thicker and sturdier than the first. His attempts to gain access to what lay beyond were fruitless, but he would not give up the undertaking. The waves of an entire ocean of energy sparkled and lazily billowed beyond the last barrier. The temptation to “attach himself” to the source was very great.

  Falling into a trance, as usual, Andy overcame the barrier leading to the mana. Ignoring the energy splashing all around him, he came closer to the barrier that separated him from that ocean. He tried to cross it head first, but that didn’t work. The barrier bent backward as if it were made of rubber and then returned to its original shape. The magical reaction to the would-be trespasser forced him out of his trance. Andy shook his head from side to side. His ears were ringing, and his nose was bleeding. It was a good reminder of the formidable response he would get if he tried to force his way to the “forbidden fruit,” but the prize called to him like cheese always did to Monterey Jack from Chip ‘n Dale, Rescue Rangers.

  What now? He could draw only one conclusion, he must solve the problem by means other than force. He needed a different strategy, a subtle, deliberate approach. He needed to learn to be as flexible as that barrier, magically speaking—to become the barrier. Andy clung to that last thought, Become like the barrier. What if I try approaching the barrier, but not piercing it, hmm? What if I could meld with it and get to the other side that way?