by Lyn Worthen
In the tarot, “The Fool” is depicted as a young man, typically on a journey of discovery; in stories, “the Fool” is often the person who speaks truths others fail to recognize. In this story, both interpretations seem to be at play.
The Last of a Thing
Douglas Smith
I am a fool.
I walk this road from the castle of my lord, wearing the costume of a fool. My chequerboard tunic rests loosely on my spare frame above red leggings, my hat dangling its bells above my painted face. The curled toes of my slippers dance through the dust of the road. A warm sun, in a sky unmarked by cloud or winged beast, speckles the forest shade.
A sound of hoofbeats taps me on my shoulder. I turn to see a knight mounted on a white steed. Proud and strong, his horse carries its load with an effortless air, a tireless extension of its master. Flames of combat lick at the coals of its eyes.
The knight draws rein. His armour radiates a light too bright to gaze on. The dust that clings to me dares not mar that sheen. Tall, erect, he sits with an easy strength. His face is fair with the haughty grace of a god amongst mortals. A hand in silver gauntlet rests on a jewelled sword-hilt above an obsidian scabbard etched with runes. His couched lance is an ivory spire threatening the sky itself.
“Good day, fool. I am Valkar of the White Castle.” He greets me with a voice that hints of mountain storms.
“I know you, good knight. Where speed you in such martial splendor?”
He looks to the horizon and a light glows in his face. “To battle Mordrag, called The Mighty, last of the dragons. With his death will I finally purge the land of the evil of the Great Wyrms. And in this act will I have great glory.”
I have a vision of a glorious battle and hear the songs that those such as I will sing in years to come. “Glory is fitting for a fine knight. Still, after you slay Mordrag, for I hold no doubt that you will prevail, what then? What wonders are left to seek? What mighty deeds remain for such as you? Will not some of your glory leave the world with Mordrag?”
The knight scowls down at me. “What is this talk, fool?”
“We measure greatness by the obstacles against which we strive. Remove them, and we diminish our capacity for greatness.”
“You are a fool,” he laughs. His horse, too, snorts derision.
“The last of a thing is something to cherish,” I say.
“Fool!” he cries as he gallops away. I walk on.
Tattered clouds scar the afternoon sky. A rustle sounds in the trees. A dwarf appears, a huge golden hammer resting on his shoulder. Sunlight sneaks between leaves to startle the gold, blazing it to life. The dwarf's eyes narrow, then he grins and leaps over the wide ditch at the roadside as if it were a crack.
He looks up at me with a face the colour of earth, and I smell treasures hidden in dark caves. Half my height, he glows with the strength of the ground beneath his broad feet. I know he could lift me with one gnarled hand and toss me as early winter winds toss a leaf. A silver buckle, etched with warding runes, holds a gold corded belt around his leather jacket. Jewelled rings adorn his hands, changing colour with each movement.
“Ho, fine fool!” he cries and slaps me on my arm, almost sending me to the ground. “I am Tugro, of the Hidden Mountain. Well met we are, well met indeed. Remember the name of Tugro, for you and your like will sing of this day.” He drops his hammer to the road with a great thud, and the ground trembles.
“Yes, well met. And to where does Tugro of the Mountain Dwarves journey that will give me cause to sing?”
Puffing up his chest, he grins at me. “Why, to slay the last of the Great Wyrms, Mordrag himself, scourge of the night, slayer of dwarves and elves and men alike.”
“And looter of the hoard of the Hidden Mountain?” I offer.
“That too,” he says with a shrug.
“Perhaps the Hidden Mountain needs to be better hidden.”
He scowls. “Do you mock me, fool?”
I raise my hands. “Would I mock one who can crush me in one fist? But what of after you defeat the Worm? For certain I am that you shall do so. What then?”
His brow furrows like a line of mountain ridges. “What mean you?”
“Who among the sons of the mountain dwarves will fools such as I sing of, in years to come? What great deeds shall your sons perform to make their names as famous as Tugro's will be?”
Tugro shifts from one great foot to the other. “They will find deeds to do,” he says, but a frown remains. Then he smiles again. “War! A war against the humans, or the elves! That will be their glory. They will do battle. The dwarves of the mountains and woods against ... well, against everyone else.”
“Yes, it is good that we will still have war to fall back on, once Mordrag is gone. And yet the last of a thing begins another. What will we begin if we end this scourge that has united us?”
Tugro grunts, lifting his hammer again to his shoulder. “Your calling suits you, fool.” He turns and strides down the road in the same direction as Valkar.
“Endings must not be taken lightly,” I call. A laugh is my reply.
The sky is mostly cloud and the breeze has added a nip to its kiss. I walk on, remembering what I have tried to forget.
# # #
A child's cry in the night. My own. Awakened from a dream that was not a dream. My parents lifting me from bed. A smell in the air. Running from the house. Everywhere the screams, the cries, the flames, and always that smell. Above, the sound of rushing wind.
But no wind blew that night. It had come.
A beast of nightmares fell to crush a house before us. Black, scaled, it breathed in the night and sent forth hellfire. My father’s last touch, pushing me into my mother's arms, standing to shield us. Screaming when the flames took him. That smell. Shoved then by my mother under the wreck of a house. Stay, child, I will return. She did not.
The screams ceased. I ventured out daring to believe they lived. But only I lived. And one other. I stood trembling before the malevolent magnificence towering over me, staring into its eyes of molten blood.
“You are the last,” the beast rumbled.
I stood frozen.
“You do not run,” it said. “Are you a fool?”
No answer. We regarded each other for a lifetime of childhood fears. Then it spoke again. “So be it.” A storm of leather beat the horror to the sky, and I was left alone.
And alive.
# # #
I trudge along, trying to forget what I have remembered. The trees move closer. The forest darkens.
“Good day, fool.” A voice from behind startles me. I turn.
Delicate as a fern in a breeze and with equal grace, an elf maid stands before me. She leans on a long bow, its tip at her forehead. The wood of the bow is black, the black of secret glades hiding ancient rituals. Flickering in the gloom, the bowstring is a gossamer thread pulsing with its own light. A rainbow-spray of feather tips peeks from a quiver behind her.
No trace of mere human beauty stains this perfection of a face. Eyes too narrow, too gray. Cheekbones too high, nose too sharp. She is the morning dew on a leaf and the wind that lifts the wings of birds. Her hair dances with firefly lights, falling past fox ears to caress a neck too white, too long.
I recover and bow. “Elven lady. How may the fool of the White Castle serve you?”
“I am Fioruna, Second Princess of the Elves of the Black Grove.”
“Second Princess? Then you stand behind a sibling in line to the High Elves' throne. For the Black Grove, or so this lowly fool is told, now holds the lineage of the Elven rulers.”
She nods. “My brother Aristor stands First Prince to succeed our mother, Queen Xenastria.” Her eyes narrow. “For now.”
“For now?”
“My brother has not the Black Grove in his heart. He skulked in the Grove while I led our army against the eldritch hordes of Dezalimal.” She makes a warding sign as she says the name of the Fallen One, and I touch a talisman at my neck. “Amo
ng my people are those who would see me Queen if I can but show one more sign of my worth. And so, I seek the lair of Mordrag the Mighty.”
“To raise you up by putting Mordrag low?”
“Well said.” She regards me. “What puzzles you, fool?”
“Forgive me, princess. Elven magic has long protected all our races against the Great Wyrms. Only the combined power of the Elven council felled the dragon flyers of the Fallen One.”
“True. Our magic has always been greatest in the presence of the Wyrms. And so?”
“What if Elven magic is linked to the dragons? Suppose the beasts feed your powers? Removing the last of the Wyrms might affect your people.” I pause. “Or even our entire world.”
She laughs, a sound of icy water rushing over stones, of the wolf in the night, the owl's talons ripping flesh. “My concern is for power and my people. Of obtaining one and ruling the other. Save your philosophy to amuse the White Castle’s court when humans drink to the death of Mordrag.”
She steps to the shadows and is gone. Turning, I see her moving swiftly down the road, in the same direction as the knight and the dwarf. The dust barely stirs beneath her feet.
I call after her. “We know not truly the value of a thing until it is lost to us.” Not even a laugh comes in reply.
I am alone again. The forest thins, and the last rays of the dying sun stab through to me. I walk on, reaching a crossroad where stands a cloaked figure, coloured stones scattered before him in the dirt. The sun is long set, but a blue aura lights the road. Black shadows flit near him, at the edge of vision but gone when I try to set eyes on them. His cloak flows over a thin frame, a blue waterfall of light, always moving, changing. Flickering stars and pentagrams appear and disappear in its luminous folds.
He raises a bony hand to me, but his eyes remain on the bright pebbles at his feet. They tremble in the dust then swirl and dance, finally aligning themselves in the shape of an arrow, pointing in the direction I travel. Smiling, he pulls a glowing sliver of iridescence from a sleeve. He waves the wand of light and the stones fly in a rainbow arc to disappear into his robe.
He points as did the arrow. “There, fool, lies…”
“The lair of Mordrag, called the Mighty, last of the Great Wyrms,” I finish for him, weariness in my voice. He scowls, so I hasten to add, “I have met others this day who seek Mordrag.”
“Then I must make speed, lest another steals his power.” He does not give a name, but I know I stand before Temaloak the Blue.
“So it is power that you seek, O Wizard?”
“The magic of the Great Wyrms has always been the strongest, and Mordrag's is the most powerful of all. That power will mean much to one who is there when the beast expires.”
“If that one knows how to bind such magic, and has the skill and speed to do so,” I offer.
He scowls at me. “You doubt me, fool?”
“No, great wizard. But a question – from where will Dragon magic come when you have banished Mordrag from the realm of light? From where will any magic come, after you extinguish such a flame?” I ask.
He shrugs and mirthless laughter echoes from those shadows around him. “Do I care if I have my store of it?” With this, he turns and glides away along the dark road.
“You close a door that even you will not reopen, Wizard!”
Temaloak's voice sounds from behind and above me. “Fool!” I turn to glimpse a winged, horned shape that then flies in pursuit of its master.
Night grips the woods. The moon rises not in glory but in sickness, shining through a putrid yellow fog clinging to the trees. I crest a rise to see the mountain home of Mordrag and a silver ribbon of road snaking its way to the top. On that road, I make out a party of travelers. Four figures, one mounted. I turn then onto a path less travelled. It is rocky, steep, and much overgrown, but will bring me to my goal ahead of them.
An hour passes, and the bones of livestock piled higher and higher tell me that I grow near. Closer still, and the scorched remnants of shields and weapons from generations of would-be heroes form a random armoury of the fallen. The rumble of the Great One's sleeping breath becomes a living, palpable thing as I stumble the final steps up the slope to stand before the last of the dragons.
A scaled head the size of a war-horse, with horns the length of Valkar's lance, looms ten paces ahead of me. Teeth as tall as the elf maid protrude from a partly open mouth in which there glows an amber fire. Thick sulfurous smoke clouds my vision, so that I can see but part of its great body snaking away through the mountain top glade. Vestigial wings, no longer able to lift the great bulk, quiver above its shoulders.
As I wonder how one should wake a dragon, two windows to hell blink open, and I stare into the eyes of Mordrag the Mighty. The mouth gapes, and the head rears into the sky on a neck that seems to never end. Flames shoot from the mouth to sear the ground where I had stood a second before.
“Who dares disturb the sleep of Mordrag?” The mountain top shakes as his roar throws me face down onto a pile of human bones. Suddenly, the air turns hot and acrid. Gagging, I turn to find the face of the monster an arm length from my own.
Those eyes regard me, then the head tilts to one side and rises again on that long, long neck, and the glade trembles with his laughter. “So do they now hope to slay me with mirth that they send a fool to conquer Mordrag?” His laughter slows, and he regards me again. “Where are your weapons, fool?”
“I have none, O Dreaded One, as I do not come to fight you.”
I have the unique experience of seeing a dragon shrug. “If not to fight me, then to feed me.” He rears back again.
“Wait!” I cry. “I bring a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Four mighty warriors even now approach your lair. Valkar, of the White Castle…”
“Knight of the Ivory Lance,” comments Mordrag.
“And Tugro of the Mountain Dwarves…”
The huge head nods. “Wielder of the Golden Hammer.”
“With Fioruna of the Black Grove Elves, and Temaloak.”
“A lithesome wench and quick with an arrow. And the Blue One himself, too?” Those great eyes turn on me. “Together, you say? They journey here together?”
“Separate they came, but they climb this mountain now as one.”
The beast regards me again. “So why do you warn me, fool? Long has the shadow of Mordrag darkened the fields of the White Castle.”
I stare at this magnificent horror, this winged nightmare, smell the stench, see the coiled lengths that disappear behind piles of bones, feel the ground tremble just from his breath.
I remember that night. I remember my parents. I remember standing alone before the beast. The reason I seek still eludes me. I simply say, “You are the last.”
The last of the dragons looks down at me. “Wisdom from a fool. Such will be the fate of your race. So be it.”
“Will you… Can you…?” I ask.
The mighty head lowers, and the words rumble in my ears like thunder down frozen slopes. “One I could vanquish. Even two. But four, of such mettle? No. The mage will shield them from my fire, not forever, but long enough. And for each breath of flame I give, will I receive an arrow in my gorge from the elf maid. In time, the dwarf's hammer will crack a breast plate, and into that crack the human warrior will thrust his sword.”
Tears cloud my eyes. “And then, oh Evil One?”
His eyes regard me, something akin to tenderness dancing in those flickering orbs. “Then, fool, will Mordrag the Mighty, Dragon Lord, Keeper of the Black Flame, last of the line of Malnifigoth of the Fire Ruby, then will I die. Then will dragon-kind pass from this realm, never to return. Never.” The last word echoes like moans of the dead through the vale. Never.
“Then seek refuge in your caverns,” I cry.
He is silent, raising his gaze to the starry sky. “In my labyrinth, warriors wander lost and if perchance they find me, only one may attack at a time. Yes, truly, safety dwel
ls there.”
My heart lightens. “Then you will retreat?”
The beast looks down at me again. “No.”
“But why, oh mighty one?”
“Because, fool, Mordrag the Mighty does not choose to.”
A shout. I turn toward the road. Blue mage light glows through the trees. I hear the high, clear sound of an elf maid's war ballad. Mordrag stirs his bulk, and the quaking of the earth throws me to the ground. “Go now, fool! Survive this night.”
I hesitate. “But…”
“Go!” he bellows, flames bursting over my head. I run. “Mordrag remembers,” he cries. “You and I, we are the last!”
I stumble back down the slope. Behind me, the mountaintop explodes in dragon flame and wizard light, reverberates with the roar of the worm and the clash of weapons on scaled hide. Smoke and sulfur pursue me, and my tears flow but not from the air.
The night tingles with a buildup of magic. Then a wall of power rushes down the mountain side and throws me forward to land on the road again. A great rumbling voice calls, “Fool!”
Darkness takes me.
# # #
I awake in the moonlight to the sound of voices and raise myself from the dirt as four figures approach from the direction of the peak.
The knight Valkar is first, walking now like the rest, his magnificent steed gone. Mud covers his armour, and the scorched metal no longer radiates that brilliant light. Rust and dirt tarnish its surface. The knight limps badly, and his face, which has seen a god amongst mortals, has a haunted look. His right hand, missing a gauntlet, holds the hilt of his sword. The broken blade trails in the dirt, scratching a jagged path.
Next comes Tugro, the dwarf, dragging his hammer as he labours down the road. The weapon seems smaller to me now, the golden surface but a dull paint. He stops beside the knight in front of me. I smell dampness, the scent of corpses rotting in the ground, of dark buried things best left buried.