Author's Notes: While it's not my favorite anymore, it is my first tale of dragons -- I think -- and as such it will always hold a special significance to me. The first version of this story was probably written in the early 1990s; since then it's been through several revisions, mostly to add details to the bones of the tale. It was last messed with in 1996 or 1997 -- I forget which -- and hasn't been touched since. In formatting it again now, though, my muse is nudging me ... we'll see what happens.
More stuff can be found at Greenlaire.net.
Long ago in the age of magical creatures and heroes errant, in a forgotten land called Eastglen, a lone, lonely dragon lived in a secluded cave in the forested hills surrounding a small village. The name of the village, as the land, was Eastglen, and here among the rural farmers and herders lived the Conrey family. Lisseth Conrey was the middle sibling, a girl-child of around twelve winters, who lived happily with her parents and older brother and younger sister. The days passed quietly and peacefully in the little community; none of the people of the village ever dreamed of a dragon in the hills to the west. Dragons were naught but fireside tales in Eastglen.
But on one clear-skied early spring day, the villagers were surprised and awed by the graceful and majestic flight of a solitary dragon over their small holding. It came seemingly out of nowhere, but before the people's fears could solidify, it was gone again. The last traces of an eerie melody faded from memory, as ephemeral as the sight of the creature who sang it... the dragon, no longer alone, for Lisseth had vanished along with it. So, too, had the people's memory of her, for with its song the dragon had cast a spell of forgetfulness upon them. When she was gone, not even her family missed her presence. Village life went on, with no one the wiser that one of their number had disappeared.
* * *
In the beginning, when the dragon at last touched down in front of its lonesome hillside cavern, it left the girl to herself, withdrawing to the cave's mouth and watching silently. Lisseth was frightened to tears of the monstrous creature who had stolen her away from her family. Everyone knew what happened to girls who had been taken by dragons! Especially young, inexperienced girls such as herself. Surely all those stories were not told just to frighten small children! She remembered how even her father, the bravest, most fearless man in the village, used to cringe at the old tales of maiden sacrifices... and her kidnapper certainly had the very biggest, sharpest teeth and claws that she had ever seen! It was such an enormous, fierce-looking beast, with glaring yellow eyes, and big muscles, and scales harder than the steel of her father's old rusty sword; she would be but a tidbit to such a creature, but Lisseth feared only the worst. Many of her waking hours were spent huddled in a sobbing ball in a dark corner of the hollow. When she slept, fitfully and plagued by nightmares, she never expected to wake up. But wake she did, and when she dared to peek toward the front of the cavern, the dragon was always sprawled across the mouth of the cave: sometimes sleeping, sometimes silently watching over her with one heavy-lidded golden eye.
She often awoke to find a chunk of well-roasted meat and several handfuls of nuts or early berries lying not far away. There was a small spring at the rear of the cave, and a girl-sized pile of sweet-smelling grass had been placed a few feet to its side. All told, she really was not lacking anything, other than companionship. She missed her family and friends in the village dearly, but she feared she was never to see them again.
But as time passed and the dragon did not eat her, Lisseth began to reconsider her fate. Why would it bother with all of the time and trouble of keeping her fed and trying to make her reasonably comfortable, if only to devour her later? There was the logical answer, that it was “fattening her up,” saving her for later, but somehow that didn't seem to fit. That very morning she had awoken to find herself enveloped in the feathery softness of thistledown, which had somehow been tamed into the comforting likeness of a thick blanket. Why? When she looked for the dragon, it was in its customary place by the cave mouth, its emerald-scaled sides rising and falling in the deep breaths of sleep.
I may be made comfortable and well-fed, sighed the girl, but I am still not to be allowed out, it seems.
The need for companionship eventually drove Lisseth to try to speak to her captor. One morning after she had eaten, she marched tremblingly up to stand in front of the dragon's nose. The dragon blinked in surprise and raised its head, its golden eyes faintly amused.
"Let me out!" Lisseth told it. To her astonishment, the dragon sat up and opened the way to the forest beyond.
"If you wish," it said in a soft bass voice. "You are free."
"You... you speak? Why didn't you say something before? Why did you take me from my family?" she demanded.
"I had nothing to say. And I took you because you are still young and openhearted. And because... I was lonely." The dragon's eyes shone at her in an expression she could only define as hopefulness. Lisseth began to lose her fear of the giant creature, and she stepped closer to it, looking it in the eyes, hoping she looked braver than she felt.
“That's no excuse. You kidnapped me!” she accused. “I had a family.”
“I know,” the dragon sighed, lowering its head. “I had thought-- perhaps I was wrong. You may go... I am not sure if I can completely reverse the spell, but I can try.”
“Spell?”
The dragon nodded, the great golden eyes fixed on a spot on the floor of the cavern. “I placed a forget spell on your village. I did not want to be hunted down and killed. If human parents are at all like draconic ones, that is what would have happened.”
“So even if I went back, they wouldn't remember me? What am I supposed to do? For all purposes, I'm an orphan.”
“I will try to remove it,” the dragon said, uncurling its tail and rising wearily to its feet. “It may take me a few hours. Forgetfulness is difficult to induce, but even harder to reverse. Wait here; you do not know the forest here, and nothing will bother you in my lair.” Its silvery talons gleamed in the early morning light like polished scythes, and Lisseth remembered being carried unharmed in those very claws little more than a sevenday gone. For a moment the dragon stood haloed in the cave's entrance by the new sun, wings half-spread to the warmth. Then it moved slowly and silently forward to the clearing in front of the lair, raising its head to the still air, testing it. It looked briefly back to Lisseth, its expression unreadable, and then again to the sky as it gathered on its haunches to leap to the air.
“Wait,” Lisseth called to it. The dragon paused and lowered its wings slightly. Lisseth stared at her former captor for a moment. “You would let me go, just like that?”
The dragon looked back at her again, the sun glinting off the graceful arch of its neck in a dazzle of light almost too bright to look at. “Yes,” it said. Lisseth wondered why the tales never said how beautiful the dragons were.
“Why?”
“I could not keep you against your will. I would not have you hate me.”
Lisseth considered the dragon crouched before her, half ready to take flight and remove a spell if she only said she wished it so. What kind of a creature would do such? The old tales always painted dragons as beasts with little intelligence and no honor, good for fighting and killing and not much else. What else might the tales have left out?
"What is your name, dragon?" Lisseth asked. The dragon relaxed visibly, and Lisseth managed a slight smile as it folded its wings and sank to the ground.
"I am Gayaneh," it --he-- replied.
"I am Lisseth," the girl said. The dragon nodded, and allowed himself a relieved smile.
“I know,” he said softly. “What shall I do, Lisseth?” he asked, nodding in the general direction of the village. His eyes were hopeful again, the girl noted.
“Wait a while, Gayaneh,” she replied. She wondered why. “I'll keep you company.”
The dragon smiled again, not nearly as frightening a sight as it should have been. Lisseth approached his giant foreclaws cautiously, her heart beating frantically, but telling herself again and again that she had nothing to fear from this dragon, at least. He had told her his name. Names, freely given, implied trust. Slowly, she reached out a hand to brush Gayaneh's shoulder, not really knowing what to expect; the tales told of cold blood and scales with edges that could cut through leather-- but the tales had been wrong before. Lisseth rested her hand against the deep forest green scales, bigger across here than a man's palm. Gayaneh's hide was smooth and warm beneath her touch, and Lisseth could feel the movement as he breathed, and the slow, steady beat of his heart deep within the dragon's chest. And he became a real, living creature. No mythical or legendary beast of hearth-tales, but a being who was born and lived, and who would die. Who could feel, and hope, and love, and be afraid.
The dragon cocked his head and gazed down at her. “Not so different as you thought, mayhap. Men fear what they do not know, and dragons have never been one of man's more beloved neighbors,” he sighed, and shifted his glance to the forest surrounding them.
“Why?” Lisseth asked simply. Gayaneh looked back down at her, his golden eyes reflecting a sorrow like she had never seen in another's.
“I do not know,” he answered. “Perhaps because they cannot understand us. Because we are too different than they. Who can guess as to the what goes on in the minds of humankind.”
“They're not all so bad,” Lisseth said, sitting down beside the dragon on the dew-wet grass. “You took me,” she pointed out. “Maybe if they knew-- you could live peacefully.”
“Hm,” the dragon snorted. “A dragon slayer will become the patron saint of England. Already, your tales teach against us. Knights seek our death to add glory and power to their reputation. If dragons are to survive, they do so only by remaining hidden. How many of your people guessed I laired this close?” he queried. Lisseth blinked up at the dragon.
“None, that I know of... there were no signs--”
“And yet I have been here for more than a century,” he admonished softly. Lisseth bit her lip and looked longingly back in the direction of her village. She wondered what her siblings were doing, and what was different since she no longer existed for them. Who gathered the wild herbs? Who brought the milk in each morning? Who helped her mother with the little garden plot outside the door? Her sister was too small.
“You miss them,” Gayaneh whispered. “I'm sorry... I should not have-- I will take you back tomorrow. The spell will take time to unravel...”
“No,” Lisseth hushed. She was intrigued by this flesh-and-blood dragon, and wondered at the soul behind the emotions in those great eyes. She would stay.
“I thank you,” said Gayaneh, lowering his head to look her in the eyes. “You will never know the depth of what you have already done for me.”
“Can I ever go back?” Lisseth asked after a moment.
“When you are ready,” replied the dragon.
* * *
Over time, the dragon Gayaneh became as much her family as any human could be, and the two grew inseparable. Gayaneh taught her all he knew, from the intricacies of the life of the forest, to the lore of dragons and their kin and the laws of survival. In turn, Lisseth taught the dragon everything she knew of human life, the worse sides right along with the good. She found that social aspects especially intrigued Gayaneh, as many paralleled draconic society, and yet others opposed entirely. "Honor," her friend explained one night, "is as exalted among my kind as you say it is among your ‘noblemen'. A dragon's word is his bond, and the one who breaks his word becomes an outcast among dragonkind. It is these, the oathbreakers, of whom you hear in your human tales of dragons."
Lisseth nodded. "My mother said that when you do right no one notices, but when you do wrong no one forgets."
"Even so, my child," Gayaneh agreed. "It seems to catch attention more readily than the good things. It was so among my people, as well."
“Your people,” Lisseth prompted, gazing up at the dragon. “What were they really like, Gayaneh? You've already proven most of the tales I know wrong.”
“Dragons,” he smiled sadly. “Dragons are fierce creatures, true. Much fiercer even than your human tales make them to be. But they are loyal and kind, too, given the chance. Especially with family... blood kin or heart kin, it mattered not. I am not the best example; most dragons are highly social creatures, lairing in family groups and mating for life...” he trailed off, the walls of the cavern echoing empty silence.
“Did you-- have a mate?” Lisseth ventured quietly.
“No,” Gayaneh sighed. “I was too caught up... too young. Then I-- went away. All dragons do, when they come of age. A ritual show of independence.” Another sigh. “And when I found my way back, the dragons had disappeared.”
“How long were you gone? They couldn't have all just disappeared...”
“Nearly a quarter of my life, and I'm no youngling... I got lost.”
“Lost?” Lisseth queried.
“It is not something I am proud of,” sighed the dragon.
“Are you the last?”
“I don't know. I hope not,” Gayaneh replied earnestly.
Lisseth stifled a yawn and cast an apologetic grin at the dragon. "Sorry," she murmured.
"No worries," Gayaneh chuckled. "It is getting late. Come, I will sing you a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me when I was small."
"You? Small?" Lisseth beamed, eyes shining eagerly, and curled up with her thistledown blanket against the dragon's foreleg. Gayaneh had a wonderfully soft, deep voice, and the girl loved to hear the old songs of dragonkind. There was magic in music, he had told her. Very literally-- the magic of dragons was based on melodies so strange and soulful that any human bard would give his eyeteeth to be able to replicate them.
"Dragonchild, now sleep in peace,
And dream of stars and moon and sea.
Forest night will shield thy slumber,
Morning sun will find thee free.Be thou ever strong and true
Where the wings of dreams take flight;
Honor, love, and faith will guard
Thy dragons' dreams throughout the night."
Lisseth yawned just once more, closed her eyes, and was instantly asleep.
* * *
The next few years were happy ones for the two. Between them, nothing was sacred, and the problems of the world stopped short of their doorstep. But as dark-haired and dark-eyed Lisseth, the dragon's daughter, grew older, she began to long for human company of her own age. Gayaneh understood, cut off as he was from his own kind, and knew that he could not fulfill her desire-- that it was time for her to return to her village.
"Follow the deer track to the hunter's trail, and head east. You will come upon the village by a back road," the dragon said, a note of regret in his clear, deep voice. “I wish I could give you something, but the only thing I hoard, if it can be called such, is life. I doubt not that your knowledge of herbs will support you nicely, though.” He was afraid of losing his Lisseth, but he dared not keep her if it was not her will. He had already taught her all he could, and she had made him happier than she would ever know. But she was free, after all, and if she did decide to stay, it was her decision. He had been alone before, and he could survive it again. Somehow.
“I'll come back. You know I will,” Lisseth told him, rubbing under the brilliant green jaw until she thought the dragon would melt into the ground with pleasure. “I couldn't leave you.”
“Only do what you must,” Gayaneh urged, his golden eyes peering into hers. “Be happy! Then I will be, too. What else is life for?”
Lisseth stepped back and gazed at him thoughtfully. “You are my life,” she said quietly, and departed before the dragon could object.
To his joy, she did come back to him. She had enjoyed her time in the township, she said, but her true home would always be with Gayaneh. There just wasn't any roast venison quite like his! She still planned to go back and culture relationships with those who were once her family and friends, now changed by time but still welcoming enough to a young traveler. She could not be angry at her dragon father for taking her when she was younger; she loved him as much as she ever had her human father, though she did wonder what her life would have been like had she remained with her village. Still, she was happiest when she was with Gayaneh, and would not trade the life he had given her for anything the village could offer. And so, each day thereafter, Gayaneh could only sit and watch helplessly and lovingly as Lisseth journeyed to the village to seek friends of open mind and good heart. She always returned by nightfall, a relief to a time-worn and weary dragon. Years passed in this manner, and the dragon and his daughter grew closer for their time apart. In the township, Lisseth never told anyone whence she came; the villagers forgot to ask.
* * *
One cloudy day early in the autumn, Allan Redmantle, a young man who thought himself a hero, lodged for the night in the little town. Whiling away the last few daylit hours outside the inn, he could not help but notice the dragon's beautiful daughter about her comings and goings.
One would have to be a thrice-blinded man not to notice that, he excused himself. I will make that girl mine... The hero decided that people-watching was not so boring as it might sound, and continued his new-found pastime. He noted that at dusk, she left by a seldom-used back road, and inquired of a shopkeeper whence she came. The merchant paused in his hurried sweeping long enough to reply that he did not know, and quickly resumed his previous flurried activity. When the young Redmantle questioned further, he soon discovered that no one else knew, either, and so decided to follow her on the next evening.
* * *
The dragon's daughter, meanwhile, was tired but excited from the day in town. When she returned to the caverns just after dark, her dragon companion was already snoring softly in his place by the entrance. Lisseth tip-toed softly by him, so as not to wake him from his needed rest; Gayaneh may have acted like a year-old hatchling before, but Lisseth remembered enough of her human schooling, combined with what she was learning now, to realize that some of the stories he had told her came from centuries long past. She smiled as she recalled his favorite tale-- dealing with the young Merlin's prophecy of "the once and future King," and several anecdotes from the early childhood of the legendary Arthur. Gayaneh claimed his accounts were first-hand: he was very young and small then, he said, and could easily hide in the twisting branches of great oak trees. The Arthurian tales, Lisseth knew, were somewhere between two and three hundred years old. Just how long did dragons live, anyway?
In a bleaker frame of mind, the dragon's daughter hummed quietly to herself as she put away her things and prepared to turn in for the night.
"And what's the name of that tune?" asked a subdued voice from behind her. Lisseth started, and glanced under her elbow. One golden eye gleamed at her from the mouth of the cave.
"Oh," she said, "Gayaneh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wake you! I just-- it's called 'Llangloffan.' A Welsh tune. I learned it from a girl in town today."
"It's sad," replied Gayaneh thoughtfully. "Almost like dragonsong... Sing it again?"
Lisseth nodded and, singing softly, made her way over to the attentive dragon's outstretched forelegs, where she curled up against his immense shoulder. She finished the song, stretched, and laid her head back against Gayaneh's warm side.
"Gayaneh," she queried, closing her eyes, "How long do dragons live?" The dragon shifted uncomfortably beneath her, and his wings twitched. He always did that when he was anxious. Lisseth's heart sank.
"Now what brings that up?" he asked, and drew a lengthy sigh. "Long enough. You need not worry about me, my daughter, nor your future."
"I was just thinking-- what would I do if... you know... " the girl replied innocently.
"Lisseth, eventually you'll find a man in the town who really suits you. You'll fall in love, get married and move in together, raise a family... Dragons and humans are alike in that respect, at least."
"But Gayaneh--"
"Shhh," hushed the dragon. "No worries. And if anything should ever happen, just remember, I'll always be with you; here, and here," he said, gently touching his claw to her head and heart. "I will always watch over you." Gayaneh paused to pull the thistledown blanket over the girl. "I promise you that. Pleasant dreams, my daughter," he added quietly.
"G'night..." she murmured sleepily.
Gayaneh laid his head on his tail and looked out at the stars. The Cross was high in the sky tonight, the moon a perfect crescent above it. The dragon glanced back at the girl asleep beside him. Who would ever have thought that he could love a human girl so much? Or that she could accept him, in turn? He had given his word that he would always keep watch over her, and watch he would, though a dragon slayer's sword bar the way.
What would she do, when he was gone? He had felt stirrings in the village recently. Where that would lead, only time could tell. Perhaps that sword was not so far away as he would like to think. The dragon knew that the forget spell he had put on her village seven years ago would not keep men away forever. And when they came... would he be prepared? Would Lisseth?
"Lisseth," he whispered, "Remember me this way." The girl sighed and turned in her dreams. Then the dragon, too, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
The following morning dawned bright and cheerful, and with the sun to the village came Lisseth. She was nineteen now, and set many boys' heads turning wherever she went. None met her fancy, though, and she carried about her routine of visiting and shopping and marketing her herbs, and at sunset, she again left the sleepy little township until the morrow. Careful not to be seen, Allan followed quietly behind her.
When she reached home, her dragon was in his usual place: curled in a firm ball by the lair's entrance awaiting her return. She had so much to tell him! She was not so sure he would enjoy hearing all about the latest fashions supposedly in favor in the King's court right now, but there had been a rather strange foreigner hanging around the village recently. She had not seen him herself, but it was said that he spent most of his time in the tavern or outside, just leaning against the wall of the Inn watching the people go by. Maybe Gayaneh would be able to fathom such baffling behavior. Since she had been teaching him human ways, he had become quite a councilor, and when Lisseth compared his tellings to what happened in the village, Gayaneh was very often right.
Allan the hero watched in horror, concealed behind a clump of broad-leafed shrubs, as the girl walked up to the monstrous dragon. The beast stretched languorously and yawned, a sight fit to pale any country preacher, and Allan waited with his eyes shut tight to hear the scream and crunch of bones that must surely follow. But he heard instead a voice, soft and soothing, that the nightingale was hard-pressed to match.
"My Gayaneh," whispered Lisseth, scratching around the base of the dragon's horns. Something like a deep purr rose in the beast's throat. "Thank you."
"Thank me?" Gayaneh rumbled questioningly. "Whatever for? Here I thought I was a beast long since devoid of surprises.”
"You're not a beast!" the girl protested, throwing her arms around the dragon's neck. "I love you, Gayaneh. And thank you for being you... dragons are so much more straight-forward than people."
"And I love you, Lisseth," replied the dragon softly, looking deeply into her eyes, "And that they seem to be,” he smiled, “But I am a beast, bound to the forest, just as you are a human and bound to your village. You certainly would not expect to see me there, now would you?" he chuckled. "I'll bet you have every male in that town tripping over his own tongue!"
Allan could not bear to watch any more. Love her, indeed, thought the young Redmantle, and hurried back to town under cover of darkness. Tripping over our own tongues, eh? She lived with a dragon! And since no one in his right mind even went close to a dragon's lair wittingly, Allan resolved that she must have been enchanted by the wily beast. After all, everyone knew what happened to girls who had been taken by dragons.
Faithful to his beliefs, Allan doggedly returned day by day, watching the life of the dragon and its daughter. He learned the lay of the land about the lair, the pair's living habits, the times and frequency of their outings, and when they returned. When he thought he was ready, he made his plan.
* * *
On the morning of the last day before what we know as November, the sun rose to a chilled and baring world. Only a few orange and brown leaves dared cling to the skeletal trees, and the wind tore at any living thing like a pack of winter-starved wolves. Allan the hero drew his cloak firmly around himself, took up his broadsword and spear, and set out to gather the few farmers he had recruited against the dragon. To think, they had doubted him! "We've never seen any dragons around here," one skinny little fool had argued. "Our livestock don't disappear. Our wells are pure and clean." Country bumpkins! "It has a girl," he had told them. "A human girl, enchanted into living with it. She actually thinks she loves it! And that it is a good dragon and loves her, at that!" That had brought them around. Who ever heard of a good dragon? They all remembered the pretty girl who visited by day and vanished by night. Who could forget?
At the last, they all finally agreed with the hero, that the only good dragon was one whose bones had long been bleaching in the sun.
It was a scraggly lot in the end, to be true, but the best that could be done in the sparsely populated land surrounding the village. Even the promise of a share of the dragon's golden hoard had not moved most of the stoic backwoods farmers. Of course, there was no guarantee that the dragon even had one... but that was beside the point. Cowards! Only one of his “volunteers” knew the use of a bow; the rest were armed with simple pikes and scythes. Allan sighed resignedly, and led his restless, rueful group down the path to the Darkness incarnate.
* * *
Crouched behind the stout trunk of a fallen oak tree, Allan watched for the emergence of the maiden from the darkness of the dragon's cavern. His farmers had all hidden themselves behind rocks and bushes and such-- as ready as the ill-prepared, untrained, countrified party could be.
At last, just as the first rays of the sun cleared the top of the rise, the girl appeared. Allan smiled to himself-- not only would he win a maiden's freedom this day (perhaps a bride, as well), his name would be remembered in bards' tales for all time as the slayer of the last dragon of Eastglen. Allan regretted not having been born in time to witness the “dragon wars” before the village of Eastglen came to be... but the last was nothing to belittle, either. Though it was fairly small, as dragons go, this relic was a good deal larger than himself. Hence, he wanted to fight it on his own terms: early in the morning, when it was not yet completely awake and the cool weather would stiffen it up somewhat. And if all else failed, he always had a secret weapon. Allan fingered the slim crystal amulet around his neck thoughtfully. He knew the beast would not be out until later that day. He would have to draw it out: and he had the perfect bait. Fair play, hah! I have lived long enough to realize that fairness gets you nowhere! When the girl neared his hiding place, he grabbed her.
"Come with me and I shall set you free!" he challenged. At first, Lisseth was too shocked to say a word. Free? She had always been free! But as the man started pulling her toward the village, her nerves thawed considerably.
"Gayaneh!" she cried, swatting at her captor's face and struggling to free herself. "Gayaneh, help!"
The dragon bellowed from the depths of its lair. In seconds, it stood in the gray light of the morning, fully awake and ready to fight for the girl. Oops!-- it was awake-- but Allan had never been more pleased.
"Stay, dragon! She is mine!" the man shouted defiantly, waving his farmers forward from their hiding places. From the undergrowth at his side, only three emerged, brandishing their scythes and pikes in a manner they hoped was menacing. “And no magic! I have countermeasures. They can be most unpleasant,” the hero promised.
"Man,” it growled, “why do you attack a defenseless girl? Let her go." There was one magic he could do that he knew the man could not counter-- but it would remain a last resort. It drained him terribly, and was difficult to control; and he would not risk harming Lisseth as he fended off the men.
"Attack her?" Allan spat, "I am not attacking her, I am attacking you! I know you have some evil spell on her, dragon. Else why would she stay with such a monster?"
The dragon backed away, an aghast expression playing across its vaguely reptilian features. "No," it said after a moment, "She has always been free. Leave us, man, and forget you ever saw this place."
"Not until I have freed the girl and rid the land of such a black beast. Have you any idea of the honor gained by slaying a dragon? Let alone the last," the hero said menacingly. The dragon again seemed shaken by his words. Perhaps this would not be so hard. The beast had to be old. It had been generations since the wars, and all the nests that had been found had been destroyed. Not that a hatchling would have much of a chance without adults to protect it.
“If that is your decision--” the dragon said, throwing off the shock of the words.
“Oh, it is. Rest assured.”
Gayaneh glanced briefly to Lisseth, then narrowed his golden eyes at the offenders and spread his wings, over a hundred feet from wingtip to wingtip. He bellowed again, a sound such as one has never imagined, that filled the forest and set the aspens quaking. Birds squawked in sudden fear and scattered; leaves trembled. The hero clapped his hands over his ears, loosing his hold on the girl in favor of retaining his hearing. Two of Allan's farmers dropped their weapons and fled in terror. The third shivered visibly, but stood his ground. Faithless dogs!
The last echoes of Gayaneh's challenge died away into the mists, and Allan uncovered his ears to reach for his steel-barbed spear. The girl had since disappeared-- no doubt, back to the dragon's dark lair-- but she was no longer the hero's first priority. His attention now centered on the beast at hand. The wickedly tined head of the spear weighed oddly on the shaft, but its bearer was a practiced spearsman. Allan hefted the weapon, sending it flying straight and true toward its intended target. The dragon, however, was more agile than the man had guessed, and neatly sidestepped the flying projectile. The steel skittered harmlessly across the emerald scales of the monster's flank, who snorted a bit at the slight annoyance, and paid it no more mind.
"Stay thyself, man. I do not want to fight you."
"Stay thyself, yourself, dragon," the man retorted. Then the Redmantle took his gryphon-hilted broadsword from its sheath on his back, hoping that if the spear had not worked, the sword would. He leveled it toward Gayaneh, its point held steadily centered on the dragon's golden throat. Gayaneh drew in a breath.
"For Eastglen and History!" shouted the man, and began a mad rush to attack.
The dragon exhaled, loosing a twenty-foot tongue of white-hot flame at his opponent. The broadsword promptly melted; no steel had been made that could stand up to dragonfire. Allan dropped the superheated hilt with a yelp and clutched desperately at his hand, which now would forever bear the burned-in sigil of a rampant gryphon.
"It is not over yet, evil beast!" he sneered. The dragon only eyed him resolutely. The remaining farmer chose that moment to bring his prize forward: the dragon's girl, trembling despite herself beneath the man's hard grasp. The hero jerked the dragon's daughter roughly from the farmer's arms and held a hitherto concealed dagger to her throat.
"You move and your damsel dies," he said. To prove his point, Allan pulled Lisseth more tightly, so that she cast a worried glance toward her friend. Gayaneh glared at the men with fury burning on his dragon face as hot as his earlier fire. The third and final farmer decided not to press his luck, and quietly retreated toward the village. But soon all the anger drained from the wearied dragon. He knew that the man could cut Lisseth's throat before he would be able to free her again. As long as the young Redmantle held Lisseth's life, Gayaneh was helpless against him.
Gayaneh folded his enormous wings back against his dorsal ridge and looked to his antagonist with acquiescence, then glanced imploringly to his daughter. "Remember," he said softly, "and hope. 'Be thou ever strong and true...'" The hero's words seemed to echo at him from before-- The last. No more. He hoped Lisseth would understand; and there was still his vow to her. One way, he thought. One chance... The earth shook as the dragon settled his weight, and waited for the hero to do his worst.
"Don't do this, please, don't do this..." pleaded the girl.
"Quiet!" the hero snapped. The dragon's eyes had taken on a distant look, which the man mistrusted... Gayaneh could almost feel the bits of melody slipping into place. Best end this, thought the hero, before it gets any ideas...
Allan used one hand to pull a silver chain from his neck, fastened to which was a transparent, inch-long crystal. Holding this amulet in his burned right hand, Allan smiled contemptuously at his beaten foe.
"You did not count on my magic, did you, beast?" the hero ridiculed. "Humans have grown powerful since your time. Before the sun rises over yonder tree," he said, "I thought I should tell you how worthy an opponent you have been. May nature be good to you!"
"No!" cried Lisseth. "Gayaneh..."
But the dragon's eyes were sad and resolved, and it made no reply. Idiot devilish creature! Has it not enough honor to even die gracefully!? A shaft of golden sunlight filtered unevenly through the branches of the tree and alighted near Allan. He reached out for it, aiming the crystal's tip at his adversary, a smirk once more marring the hero's proud features. The crystal caught the sunlight and directed it through its point to its target. Gayaneh lifted his head --
-- and sang. One last, clear note before the light struck him; then the dragon's song was strangled in his throat, dead, the dragon frozen to cold, hard stone where he lay.
The forest was strangely silent. But with his final note, the dragon had cast upon Allan his powerful spell of forgetfulness, so that never again would the man trouble his only family.
* * *
The shaft of sunlight flickered behind a passing cloud, and was gone. Lisseth pulled away from the now thoroughly bewildered Allan and ran to Gayaneh. The dragon's body glistened cold and dull in the muted light, brown/gray stone betrayed only by faint green or golden hues, wasted versions of their former glorious tones. Lisseth stared in numb shock; what cruel trick was this? What illusion that denied her her greatest friend, her only true family, her mentor, her love? Gingerly, she reached out to lay a hand on the dragon's shoulder... but the old tales may as well have been true. The dulled scales where chilled and comfortless beneath her touch, stilled and empty of the life at which she had once marveled.
Realization came slowly. How could anyone do this? Lisseth sank to her knees beneath the dragon's once proud and regal muzzle, blinking back the wetness that threatened to fill her eyes, fighting to keep control of her warring emotions. What would he want? He'd taught her how to take care of herself. He had known this was going to happen one day.
A light rain began to fall in the dragon's clearing, as if the Heavens themselves sorrowed at the loss of a light in the world. A soft wind stirred the branches of flame-leafed trees: Remember... they whispered, and were silent.
Allan the hero drew his cloak more tightly about himself. This meadow certainly was eerie, he thought. He wondered, briefly, why anyone would place a large sculpture of a dragon in the middle of the woods. Some strange kind of monument or memorial, perhaps? And why there was a girl slumped dejectedly at its feet, staring into nothing. He wondered, too, why he was holding a peculiar crystal up in the air, and why there was a gryphon sigil painfully burned into the palm of his right hand.
At a loss, the hero tossed the crystal toward the statue of the dragon and went on his way.
* * *
Lisseth remained. She could not forget Gayaneh. She sat on the spongy moss between her dragon father's forelegs and watched the rain weep from tarnished silver clouds. "Hope," he had said. So she waited, and she knew --somewhere, somehow-- he would watch over her as he had promised, and she would remember.
I promise, sighed the wind through the trees.
'Be thou ever strong and true
Where the wings of dreams take flight;
Honor, love, and faith will guard
Thy dragons' dreams throughout the night.Forget not hope; with love and faith,
The greatest trials fall 'fore these three:
Triumphant, both in dreams and waking,
Triumph, in the heart of thee.'
* * *
Written by Cynthia Reep