He knelt before its unopened bulk for a long time. The dark coldness of the River filled his heart. Fear and the dread of exposure—of the revelation of his failures—held him frozen. Only his continual silent tears marked any sign of a thaw. In silence, also, Nathan patiently waited.
"I... I cannot open it!" Jason whispered, at last, raising his pleading eyes to his teacher.
When the bard answered, Jason heard tender compassion in his voice, "You have carried those thorns hidden in your pack for a long time, haven't you?"
"H-how did you know that I was carrying thorns? I didn't realize that you could tell. Until just now, I thought I was supposed to be carrying them. I really didn't know 'till you told me that they were bad..."
Nathan smiled, and the boy accepted its warmth as not just a token of friendship, but even more, a lifeline to the drowning. "There are two ways that I could tell," said the bard. "First, all men and women on Dragonsback gather thorns. It’s in our nature, just like our inbred need to stick thorns in others. Its part of the package: apart from the Gryphon, everyone carries personalized poison in his pack (and is poisoned by it). Many of the thorns we carry find root in our past: they are the ones that others used on us to wound us. After a conflict, most men and women accumulate them to mark and keep track of the embarrassments, the hurts, or the defeats inflicted deliberately on them by others. When those others hurt us, it is common practice for them to leave the spent weapon behind as a token of our defeat; it is ours to either treasure or discard. Treasured thorns become dragons' nests. In contrast to all of this, the Way of the Gryphon, or 'following Gryphon tracks,' as your GrandSire used to say, calls for us not to use thorns at all, or to quickly reclaim any that we inadvertently use and offer healing to those we have wounded."
In spite of his misery, Jason interjected, "My GrandSire had no thorns in his pack, so he traveled lightly over the bridge of air. But that old hermit was poisoned 'cause he kept every thorn that ever came to him!"
"That is bard's truth! You have seen clearly with your own eyes the difference thorns can make in two lives. But sadly, son, there are even more deadly kinds of thorns. Most dangerous of all are the thorns of revenge. When we are hurt, wounded, or defeated by someone, we may choose to gather thorns in that person's name. Thorns of revenge are those that we gather against others in anticipation of battles that have not yet been fought. Whether from lack of opportunity, some flavor of fear of the consequences, or because we are waiting for 'just the right time,' these weapons of destruction are held and have not been deployed in a challenge.
“What people fail to realize is that holding onto these thorns drastically affects anyone who holds them. You already know that the River fills to overflowing whatever seeks to contain it. Unused full-grown thorns carry a very concentrated form of this venom of the Dragon and, through prolonged contact, will overflow and fill any man, woman, or child who attempts to hold them. These thorns fill the carrier's mind with plots and twists and schemes as the unspent poison seeks some kind of release into the world through the life of every individual who seeks to use their poison on others! I believe from what he said that the 'Samson' wielded by that old hermit was just that kind of thorn.
"Even when great injustices are done, any person who takes up thorns against another poisons himself more than he poisons his target! The Gryphon sternly warns that any individual, who would take justice into his own hands, crosses a line into His exclusive domain. The Gryphon says:
"'Mine is the Ledger,
It is Mine to collect:
I'll watch over the tally
And the sum not neglect.
For thorns will consume you
If your accounts they design:
From Me alone comes the payment,
For vengeance is Mine!'" *18
A growing fear gnawing in his heart kept Jason's outward voice silent, but inwardly his thoughts screamed at him in angry accusations. The only escape he could find from their condemning words sprang in the tears now flowing freely down his cheeks.
After a brief pause the bard spoke again, this time his deep voice, reduced to an intense whisper, instantly quieted the clamoring within, "Jason, my son, there remains one other kind of thorn-use that you need to recognize before we can continue."
Jason hung his head as he noticed that his teacher and friend did not indicate exactly what needed to be continued, but its now hushed reality hung over the youth like a mythical sword dangling above him on the end of a slender thread! Silently he let out a mental groan, that if voiced would have sounded like the cry of a cornered animal. Yet, somehow, he trusted this man to do the right thing, so raised his tear-filled gaze once more as the bard continued.
"Some people gather thorns when there has never even been a fight or an offense; they only think there has. They imagine conflicts where no conflict was intended, and so take up thorns to defend themselves, but never put them down again. Even though they, themselves, take those thorns up, they come to believe that the other party left them behind as tokens of defeat. Again, this is a trick of the poison: in reality, the thorns they hold have never been used in a battle, so all of the Dragon's venom remains inside, seeking its escape through the carrier. What is even worse, is that the offending person, even if he follows with all his heart the Swimmer's law of love, cannot retrieve the thorn, because he or she doesn't even know that one was taken up in their name. Nests built of these thorns are the hardest kind to remove."
"Is that the kind of thorns I have?" asked the boy, his voice trembling with fear because he already knew the answer.
But the bard did not confront him with direct accusations as his own thoughts had done. Instead, smiled at the boy and said in a voice soft and kind, "Everyone on Dragonsback carries the water of the River—with them and in them. Some in skins, some in fancy bottles, and some in thorns. You are an orphan who saw your parents die under tragic and unusual circumstances. That would cause anyone to gather thorns and not a few. Once a nest has been built, the dragons usually try rather successfully to hide it. The answer to your question lies within your own pack. You alone know exactly what it holds. You and the Gryphon."
"If He already knows what's in there," asked Jason, looking for any excuse not to pull a bandage off of an ancient, but still unhealed wound, "why do I have to show it to Him?"
"Jason, remember earlier today? You helped an old widow who had just lost her son. Why did you do that?"
The boy's answer was swift and confident, "She would have died if I hadn't helped her. It would have been a tragic loss, to see her throw herself into the River!"
"Exactly! And you did the right thing! In the same light, do you think the Loving Gryphon wants to see you slowly poison yourself to death? Especially when there's a free cure?! That is why you must open your pack: so the Gryphon can remove the poison!"
For as long as he could remember, he had hidden as shameful things the open, thorn-caused sores on his back. After all, everyone carries a pack; to be unfit to carry your own load brought with it a universal stigma of shame. Silently he had suffered lest anyone think him polluted, a social outcast. Only Kaleb, he thought; only Kaleb knows of my pain, as I know of his. And now, at last, I think I know the cause. It’s the poison in the thorns!
The unexpected revelation that there might be a cure to end his suffering excited the youth. Jason considered the wisdom in the words he had heard and reluctantly made a decision. He would open his pack. It needed to be opened. Yet, when he tried to reach out his hands to unbind its fastenings, his arms would not move. Bound by an unseen force, he could only stare helplessly at the offending pack sitting there before him. Finding himself no longer in control of his own life, hopeless despair and overwhelming fear gripped Jason between gigantic scaline claws.
He raised his eyes to the clear blue sky above him. He also raised his voice to cry out loud, not just to Nathan, his teacher, but to whoever or whatever would listen. "Why can't I open my pack?" he pleaded. "What is hol
ding me?!!" His voice rose as panic gripped his throat, binding that, also. In this imposed silence, his eyes, pleading “Help me!” sought the nearby face of his mentor. On it, he read concern... and hope!
As if waiting for this unspoken invitation, Nathan reached across the pack that separated them to gently grip one of Jason's forearms in each of his strong hands. Gently he moved his captured prey toward the pack, and the paralysis broke! But instead of guiding the boy's hands toward the fastenings of the pack, the bard caused them to rest on an object dangling from its side.
At that instant, the floodgate that had dammed a sea of questions suddenly burst open as Jason found his voice once more, "What's happening to me? Why couldn't I move? And why did you put my hands on GrandSire's shellbowl instead of helping me open the pack? Isn't that what you're trying to get me to do? What is going on?"
Nathan, ever the stalwart lighthouse, weathered the flood with a stoic smile, waiting for its tide to abate before responding calmly, "I told you before that there were two ways I knew that you were carrying thorns. Before you open your pack, I want to show you the second, though you should know what it is already. Your GrandSire told you of it on the day he crossed the bridge."
To the youth's puzzled stare, the bard replied in a song in a fair imitation of the familiar deep timbre of the departed Heartlander. To Jason it was as if his GrandSire spoke to him from beyond the sea of clouds:
"In pathless ways 'twill be your guide,
'Twill show y’ where the dragons hide,
And cleanse from poison deep inside:
The Water and the Sword.
The Water and the Sword, are one,
'Twill finish that which they've begun,
To make y’ like the Gryphon's Son:
The Water and the Sword." *3
The sound of his GrandSire’s voice, if only in imitation, brought both sorrow and comfort to Jason. "I remember the words," he responded with a sigh, "but I don't understand how the 'Water and the Sword' can reveal dragons."
"Watch closely, my young apprentice, and do what I do," said the teacher.
Nathan changed his position so that he now sat on the ground with his legs crossed in front of him. Jason, who had still been kneeling, swiftly moved to follow his example, so that now the two sat facing each other with their packs between them. With the deft skillfulness of a long-practiced habit, the bard unslung the shellbowl from the side of his own pack and placed it securely in the hollow created by his crossed legs. Again, the boy mimicked his actions. Then, as though caught up in a deeply significant experience (and without even looking up to see if his student was complying), Nathan reached for his skin of adoption and poured a small quantity of sweet water from it into the bowl.
Jason, mystified, but ever compliant, took his GrandSire's waterskin and did likewise, pouring some of the precious fresh water into the shellbowl in his lap. He then waited and watched to see what his teacher would do next. For what felt like a very long time, he waited, yet the bard neither moved nor spoke out loud. The older man just sat and silently stared down into the bowl on his lap as though it were a window opening into a world of beauty beyond imagination.
At last, the impatience of youth conquered the discretion of coming maturity and demanded its verbal reward. The two emotions had waged a long internal battle before the strategic arrival of an unexpected ally—confusion—turned the course of the silent conflict. The boy spoke at last.
Filling his voice with reluctance and apology he dared at last to ask a question, "What are we supposed to be doing?"
"You are supposed to be doing exactly what I asked you to do when we started this exercise," replied the bard, but his tone was nowhere as harsh as his words.
"But what is that?" asked the boy, unmasking his growing impatience and frustration by his own tone. "You told me to 'watch you' and that is exactly what I have been doing!"
Nathan smiled again at his student, chuckled a little, and then replied, "No son, I told you to observe what I did, then do it. You have been watching me, but I have been watching the reflection in my bowl, something that you as yet have not tried. The captured dew of the morning has special properties that would astound most people. Look to your bowl and reflect upon its contents!"
Jason had been sitting motionless for a long time, so the water in his bowl lay absolutely calm. As he bowed his head to gaze into it, he realized that it functioned just like a mirror! He thought back to the day on the Flying Eagle when he had seen reflected shadows that had warned his GrandSire of the approaching Dragonsbreath. Now he could see his own reflection clearly displayed in the liquid. But as he looked, it suddenly occurred to him that there were some subtle differences between what he recognized as reality and the image he saw in the shellbowl. As in the day of Dragonsbreath, there were shadows surrounding him where no shadows should be! They kept constantly moving and obscuring the picture.
"I'm naked!" Jason shouted, realizing with a start that the image before him wore no clothes!
"Of course you are. How else do you think you appear before the Gryphon? Do you think you can hide anything at all from Him?"
The boy did not respond to this revelation, rather he continued to stare at the reflected image which continued to reveal even more. Through the swirling shadows, through his now transparent flesh portrayed in the reflecting water, he could see the long unhealed scars on his back, gouged there by the thorns he had carried in his pack since childhood! The reality of his deepest, most painful secret revealed itself to his eyes for the first time. He had known those sores were there. He had felt their pain for all of his memory. But now he saw them and recognized them for what they were. Marks of a man unfit to carry a pack!
Tears of shame fell to mingle with the pure water of the shellbowl, yet they did not disturb the image: the saltwater of eternity only clarifies the water of the Gryphon.
"Is this how the Gryphon sees me?" asked the boy between sobs. "How could he ever want to look on someone so scarred and deformed?"
Softly, yet with excitement evident in his voice, Nathan responded. "There was once a man scarred much more than you; it is because of Him that the Gryphon delights to look at you and can even offer a cure."
"I am scarred too deeply and have carried my wounds too long to have any hope of a cure. Nothing I have tried has ever helped in the slightest. But, tell me, what are these shadows that keep obscuring my view in the bowl? It's almost like I'm trying to look out a window while someone keeps pulling a thick, black curtain in front of my eyes to block my vision."
"You have seen correctly! Someone is trying to block your vision. You have asked me whether anyone has ever seen dragons in this world. The answer is 'yes'. You are looking at some right now! Their dark, evil wings are the 'curtains' blocking your view!"
Sudden Fear, like a living thing, grabbed and shook the boy at his core as he heard this news. His muscles convulsed involuntarily and the shellbowl between his legs went flying into the air, spilling its precious contents.
Jason grabbed up his own scaline shortsword and brought its point to bear on his teacher. Anger and betrayal flushed his face crimson. "Why!?" he screamed at his companion. "Why did you show me these things? First, you strip me naked and expose my shame, and then you surround me with the reality of my worse nightmare. What are you trying to do to me?"
Nathan never even raised his head to acknowledge the sword that challenged him. Instead, he continued to gaze intently down at his own, still undisturbed bowl. "I did nothing to you," he replied calmly. "The dew of the morning only reveals what already is. The Gryphon has given you a true picture of yourself. The closer you draw to a fire, the larger the shadow behind you. As you approach True Light, you are transparent and only that which is hidden casts a shadow.
"Did I not tell you," spoke the bard, and authority rang in his voice, "that where thorns are gathered, dragons build their nests? Did you think I was making up stories to frighten little children?" He raised his head then to
look Jason in the eyes, "The truth is more frightening than any story I could ever devise!"
For a long moment, they sat there – eyes locked, wills crossed, and destinies weighed in the balance. But reality's crushing weight finally took its toll. The Sword in Jason's hand felt the brunt of that weight and, without his bidding, came crashing to the ground. Jason's head, his heart, and his hope fell with that vanquished weapon.
"I am lost, then," he cried, misery filling his voice. "Beyond hope! A slave of the dragons and their cursed thorns! I thought they were just in my nightmares. But they had me all along!"
"You are lost, my young friend," said Nathan with a burning intensity that broke through Jason's despair, "but not beyond hope. A person learns to swim one stroke at a time."
To Jason, the bard's confusing answer became the leaf that sank the boat. "But I am not a Swimmer!" he exploded. "And I don't know how to become one! In fact, I am deathly afraid of the water. My parents..."
"No," replied the bard, gripping the boy by the shoulders so that he had to meet the older man's gaze, "you are not a Swimmer, but you're very very close. Son, I know about your parents. It is full time we opened your pack. But, before you do, I must open mine first. There is something very important that I have to share with you—something you must see and know before we can proceed."
THE TONGUE
OF FLAMES
By Yaakov the Elder
They that sword and thorn can guard
Have mastered something very hard:
For in many things we all offend,
But good seed is known by its fruitful end.
A mighty wind might fill the sail,
But the tiny rudder will prevail;
The Dragon's Back Trilogy Page 22
