She grew to adulthood and knew she must find others of her kind. The hawks, who flew everywhere, had reported seeing dragons two days' flight inland.
Once she knew where to go, the day came for her to leave the only home she had ever known. The other animals gathered to bid her farewell.
"I thank you with all my heart-or what's left of it-for your kindness," she said. "If I can ever repay you, it will be my pleasure."
"It's been our pleasure to be your friends," Ivory, the current leader of the horses said. "We will miss you greatly."
"Perhaps when it's time for me to bear my own young, I will return to this peaceful place," Tarasque said, but in her damaged heart she wasn't even sure that she would ever know love and contentment of that kind again.
"We will guide you out of this place," Ivory said. Tarasque followed, her feet sloshing in the wetness of the salt-water marsh. The horses whinnied to warn her of quicksand, and a few pink flamingos flew above.
"Be careful when you come close to areas called cities," Ivory warned her. "You will know long before you reach them because of the human smell."
"That smell I will never forget," she said.
They came to the end of the marsh, and the horses and flamingos bade Tarasque farewell. She waved a wing forlornly and flew away.
She found that, while cities were easy to avoid, the further she traveled from the sea, the more humans prevailed. Exhausted, she finally found a bridge beneath which she could hide. As she crouched in the shadow of a stone pillar, she realized she was truly alone.
Hunger awoke her in the morning. She poked at the running water beneath the bridge but found neither kelp nor crabs. The sun rose higher in the sky, and her hunger grew. Finally, as evening approached, a sheep passed her hiding place. By now near starvation, Tarasque lunged from her hiding place and tore out the creature's throat.
Its' dying cry hurt her in every cell of her body, and the taste of blood made her gag, but hunger triumphed, and she ate ravenously. Though she could grow accustomed to eating flesh, remorse was harder to swallow. That night she suffered from indigestion and the gnawing certainty that it was time to move on.
The next morning, the sound of humans yelling awoke her into remembered terror.
"My sheep! Look, only shreds and bones are left. It must have been killed by a pack of wolves."
"We'll organize a hunt. Make sure your animals no longer graze in this area."
Tarasque pressed against the stone pillar and didn't make a sound.
When night came, she crept out from the shelter of the bridge and hoped to make her way without being seen, but the moon was full. A gang of humans, armed with arrows, saw her and began firing. She took flight and escaped, but arrows and sharp stones nicked her hide.
Once she was out of range, Tarasque circled over a lake. It was nothing like the sea, but she thought that during the day she might be able to submerge herself with only her nostrils above water. She sank into the warm water, and something like seaweed brushed against her legs. Thinking it might be edible, she dove to the bottom and found it tasty. She tried some tiny fish, which, though they lacked the salty tang of crabs, were edible. Maybe she could rest here a while until she had the courage to continue her search for other dragons.
The humans, though, found her the next day. Several of them got into a boat and tried to row out to the center of the lake, but she kicked the water and slapped it with her wings. The boat tipped over, and some of the humans drowned. The others shouted and cried to the Lord, who was also called God, to help them.
After the drowning incident, the humans left her alone for a few days. She knew she should leave this place, but her depression, deeper than the lake, immobilized her.
One day, when she was filling up on fish, she heard a different kind of human voice, one that was low-pitched and gentle.
"Dragon, are you in there? I am Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by our Lord."
That our Lord business again. Tarasque covered her ears, but the voice continued. "The people are very frightened. Because they have prayed to God for three days to vanquish you, I have agreed to come here."
Tarasque dug her claws into the mud of the lake. She had no idea what "vanquish" meant, but it didn't sound promising.
"Dragon, will you come out?"
"No," Tarasque roared, "unless you tell your Lord to raise my parents from the dead."
Martha sighed. "I can't do that, but as long as I'm here, I'll sing to you."
Tarasque kept her ears covered, but the small tendrils of song that passed through her clenched paws were, unlike the shrill bawling of the humans who had killed her parents, too beautiful to ignore.
"I praise the Lord who created all animals, great and small.
I praise Him for the birds who sing me awake in the morning
And for the butterflies who paint color across the sky.
I praise Him for the horses who race across the fields
And for the cattle who seek shelter from the mid-day sun."
She continued with a long list of animals, but Tarasque didn't hear her species mentioned. She raised her head. "What about dragons?"
"Come out of that lake, and I will sing of dragons," Martha said.
Suspecting a trap but longing both to be named in the lineup and for that lovely voice to keep singing, Tarasque emerged. The woman's eyes shone.
"Oh, beautiful dragon, drawn by His master pen,
When we witness your greatness, we must sing amen
And praise Him who created beauty so fair
That its glory must be seen everywhere."
Her lovely voice soothed Tarasque as the warm sea and salty breeze once had. The warmth of her eyes bathed the dragon's heart with healing. More than anything, Tarasque wanted the woman's hand on her scales. She crept close enough to be touched, and soft fingers caressed her neck. She groaned quietly. The tight knot of pain that had squeezed and shrunk her heart began to untie. As ecstasy carried her away from reason, she remembered that her mother had caressed her like this.
"Come with me into the town, dragon, and let the people see they need not fear you," Martha said.
Tarasque knew this would be a mistake, but, as Martha turned and walked away, the dragon, overwhelmed by long-forgotten feelings of love, was compelled to follow, even when buildings began to close off all possibility of escape.
Martha stopped in a village square, full of people who howled at the sight of Tarasque. "Kill the dragon!" they shouted, gathering far too close for comfort.
Tarasque, jolted out of her brief happiness, roared. "This is an outrage. I've been lured here under false pretenses. Was your plan to kill me with kindness?"
"But the people are upset," Martha said. "You've killed their animals. You must be punished. Through your death you'll be redeemed."
Tara folded her forelegs across her scaly chest. "Through my death I'll be dead. That sounds to me like a very severe punishment. If you accuse me of a capital crime, I demand to speak in my defense. I only killed your livestock-once, I might add-because I couldn't find anything else to eat, and I waited until it was a question of my death or that of the sheep. You wish to kill me for that, but you do the same. Do you think the beasts of the field care who eats them?"
"This isn't a trial!" one man roared. "You've been convicted."
Tarasque steamed so hotly that several people jumped away. "As my parents were? Which of you marched with the group that killed two fine dragons who never harmed a human in their lives? Furthermore, they were practically vegetarians."
Martha hesitated. "I knew nothing of this. Tell me the story."
Having learned to her peril how powerful song could be, Tarasque sang for her life, a melody rich with the sound of the sea and the hissing of sand, and the pounding hooves of the beautiful white horses. Her voice shaking with sorrow, she sang of the small dragon left an orphan, cowering beneath a pile of damp seaweed while she listened to the sounds of
her parents being killed.
In the most mournful tone she could summon, she wove an aria of the lonely years of her life, bereft of any member of her species, comforted by flamingos and horses and the powerful black bulls. She heard humans crying as she described her farewell to the only friends she'd known.
Tarasque thought she might have won them over until one human said, "Dragons are beasts who endanger people. They must be slain in the name of God."
God again. Tarasque raised her head. "This woman, Martha, says God made me, as He made you. If this is true, my life is equal in value to yours. Who is to say which creation deserves more love and indeed life itself? Which is more deserving of the bounty of this earth?"
She pointed her wing at the man who had said she must be slain. "Prove that God loves you more than me if you would slay me."
The townspeople argued among themselves, and one of them went to get the priest, who gasped at the sight of Tarasque and refused to come closer. Martha withdrew from the crowd and stood alone, her eyes closed and her hands clasped together.
"Lord, show us the truth," she prayed.
This was a little too general for Tarasque. She took matters into her own paws, raising her head to the sky. "If I be worthy to live and flourish, give me a sign, Great Spirit That Gives Life. Let these unbelieving humans see that someone in this world will come to Tarasque's rescue."
She listened, and at first she was afraid, for the sky answered her with silence. Tarasque began to wish she had died with her parents, the song of wind and sun in her ears and the honest tang of salt caressing her nostrils. Instead, she would perish in a dirty, dusty square, rank with the stench of humanity, with no one to weep over her.
"God does not answer her," a man said and raised his bow. "I will kill this dragon for the glory of our Savior."
"Wait," Martha said. "Listen."
The sound of fluttering wings hummed in the sky. The fluttering grew to a roar, and dragons of all colors began to circle the town, some breathing fire, some blowing gusts of wind that tore at the humans' clothing, and other weeping tears that threatened to drown them.
The townspeople fell to their knees and prayed to their Lord to drive the demons away.
"They are angels," Martha said, "and a sign from God to spare this dragon."
Tarasque doubted that a word of this was true, but she wasn't about to argue against any lie that would spare her life.
"They are devils," one man called out, but another pushed him, saying, "She's Martha, you idiot. Has God spoken to you recently?"
While some humans looked upward in terror and others argued theology, Tarasque edged away from the center of the town. The sounds of the villagers faded as she approached its outskirts. Martha and the dragons followed her.
They stopped a few miles from the village. "We'll never meet again," Martha said, "but I won't forget you. Whenever you feel bitter and angry with humans, remember that you had the power to open the heart of this one. Thank you. I'll never see the world in quite the same way again."
Nor, Tarasque realized, would she. Mainly, she planned to never again see the parts of the world where humans lived. "You're a good human, and I thank you, but I'd be a fool-and a dead one-to think any others are like you."
Martha looked sad. "Perhaps some day you will put your faith in the Lord."
Tarasque decided that silence would be the most polite answer, and they parted with a shaking of hand and paw.
The dragon tried to fly up and join the hovering flock, but the frightening events of the day replayed in her mind and drained her wings of strength. She collapsed beneath a tree.
The dragons landed and circled her, brushing her softly with their wings, and speaking to her in low, melodious voices.
"We heard your plea," a handsome water dragon said. "It moved my heart."
"I'm glad it moved your wings, too," Tarasque said.
These were the first romantic words between the dragon and the one who later became her mate. At first, Tarasque thought nothing about the dragon's attention, but as he continued to gaze at her with soft green eyes, she felt an answering softness in her heart. The shield that had protected it from both pain and love, pierced by Martha's song, now melted.
Revived by the renewal of love for one of her own species, she grew stronger, her wings flexed for flight. "I'm ready," she told the dragons, and they all rose into the air.
Far below them, Martha walked back to the city, singing a song of praise to her Lord. Tarasque reflected that, although the humans' Lord had hatched a lot of failures, this woman was made of kindness and love.
"May the sun warm your face and the sea bathe your limbs," Tarasque whispered and flew away.
The Dragon Who Didn't Fly
(Book I of A Dragon's Guide to Destiny)
Chapter 1
The whisper of raindrops awoke Druid. He groaned and covered his ears with his paws. This silenced the dismal dripping, but nothing could prevent him from hearing the call of duty, even when its fulfillment yielded fewer rewards than scratching his scales.
Druid heaved his bulk into a standing position and lumbered from his cave at the bottom of the cliffs that bordered the swamp. He raised his head to the misty sky and recited the ancient water dragon ritual.
"The rains are here. The earth springs alive again. All creatures rejoice, Mother, at the gift of Your tears."
The words settled like dust in Druid's mouth. During the five hundred years humans had occupied the land beyond the swamp, he'd had trouble believing in either the litany or the Mother it honored.
The delicate pattern of life that made the earth whole had begun to deteriorate with their arrival. Both floods and drought had become more common. Refuse choked the rivers, and the grass in the meadows close to human settlements grew pale and sparse. Sometimes Druid wondered if these strange animals survived by sucking the life out of the land.
Today the deterioration seemed to have accelerated, like rot biting deeper into the heart of a tree. Agitation stirred the sluggish waters of Druid's habitual depression. Though humans were probably responsible for this latest disruption, he scanned the swamp to search for a local disturbance: one of the plagues that occasionally swept through the rodent communities or the far more common misbehavior of half-grown wolves.
Nothing seemed changed. As usual, Spanish moss cloaked brooding cypress trees, forming curtains that stretched from tree to tree and muted the sunlight. The ponds that sprouted blackened tree stumps like decayed teeth remained as stagnant as ever.
The dragon's awareness traveled to other parts of the swamp: the golden seas of saw grass and the dark splendor of the islands that dotted them, the twisted scarlet roots of mangroves belting the area between swamp and sea. He sensed no discord among the creatures who shared this world with him. In a nearby tree, the attention of a hungry hawk was drawn to baby mice who fretted in their mother's absence. Druid heard a cougar's distant growl and the delicate hoof steps of deer. Insects, stirred to life by the rain, buzzed in their billions.
Beyond the boundaries of the swamp lay the human world he'd never seen. Druid called on the pictures that birds had given him of the belching creatures used to stab the earth for growing plants, and the caves of stones and wood filled with bloodless beings that hummed and flashed. Still further to the east stood a place of deadness named City, where life tried to survive with little sun or earth.
In the center of this dead place stood tall caves where humans made plans that threatened other animals. Druid focused his attention there, and the discord burned like a tree struck by lightning. His nostrils filled with the acrid odor of despair.
From the first moment he'd seen them, carrying sticks that spewed out fire no more deadly than the hatred they breathed, he'd known them as enemies. His father's stone-shattering roar had transformed their rage into terror. Physically unharmed, they'd dashed from the swamp, their shriveled hearts swollen with the stuff of nightmares. Only fools and madmen had ever app
roached the swamp during the following centuries, and the roar Druid had learned from his father had always sent them scurrying back to the safety of their foul cities.
Now the opposite has happened. Their fear feeds their hatred. They approach, the poison of their emotions staining the forest floor. I may finally discover whether my parents told the truth when they said human weapons couldn't penetrate my scales. Why should I believe them? They lied about everything else.
"Druid! The humans come!"
The screech thrust Druid out of his trance. Tomo, leader of the cougars, bounded down the path to the cave. "They're near the place in the forest where fire took many trees last summer."
Alarm ruffled Druid's scales. "They haven't come that close in a hundred years. Why now?"
"We can talk about why later," Tomo growled. "You've got to drive them out quickly."
Druid, not anxious for an aerobic trot, considered the possibility of a psychic confrontation. As a young water dragon, he'd learned how to transmit an essence of terror so powerful it could make humans believe he stood before them. Now he was so out of practice that he'd probably give himself a sinus headache if he tried, and he'd be laid up for days. Worse, if it didn't work, animals would die. He already heard frightened shrieks that turned his water to steam.
He would have to make a live appearance, but that required exertion. His legs, longer than the length of Tomo's body, could cover a lot of ground, but they had to carry a body weighted down from a long, idle winter of eating kelp.
He wheezed as he followed Tomo back along the trail.
The cougar glanced at him. "Why don't you fly there? It would be faster."
"A faster way to die. Imagine the target I'd make."
"True, but, now that I think about it, I've never seen you fly."
Druid didn't want even his best friend to know why he didn't fly. "Let's not discuss my exercise habits. Did you see the humans?"
"No, a young squirrel, Tolti, brought me the news." The cougar stopped so quickly that the dragon nearly tumbled over him. "She heard them speaking. They said they were going to take water from the swamp."
Druid quivered with an amplified sense of wrongness.
"Dragon, you know this squirrel. Does she have a brain in her tiny head?"
Cats in Command and Other Stories Page 4
