Ruby River Runs

Wind whips against my scales as I soar down the mountain. The full force of winter is coming gently this year, bearing itself in one ongoing shower of snow that covers the land flake by flake.

I make for the windward side of the mountain where rivers flow lush and clear from the top of frozen peaks down to the valleys of the foothills. Already I can see them in the distance, veins of icy water–the forest’s lifeblood–braiding along the rocks and through the trees all the way down the mountain.

Amid the trees, I spot a bolt of red cloth, brighter than fire. The red cloth decorates a hairy, long-horned beast that is gnawing at the ground where a few stray pieces of grass peek through the snow. Shiny brass bells and colorful embroidery ornament the cloth on its back, and a wooden sled trails behind it. That is human work if I have ever seen it. I slow my flight and descend into the forest to see with my own eyes what such a domestic beast might be doing so far up the remote mountainside.

A small sound comes from underneath the beast. Peering beneath the bright cloth, I see a tiny human-shaped bundle clinging to the long under-hair of the beast. The child’s eyes go as round and wide as the full moon. He crawls out from under the beast and stares up at me with wonder.

Seldom do I reveal myself to humans as they are prone to creating trouble and asking for more than they give. This one, however, appears to be alone in the storm, and as this mountain is my domain, I am obligated to offer my help.

“Well met, child,” I say. “I am Sureksi, guardian of rivers, watcher of skies, and master of this mountain.”

The human stares, mouth hanging agape.

“What might I call you?” I prompt.

The child crawls toward me on wobbly limbs. He grabs one of my claws, though his hand cannot wrap around it all the way. The fingers of the child are strangely warm, given the weather. With his other hand, the child points a finger at me. “Dag!” he declares.

“Yes, that is me. I am a dragon. But who might you be?”

“Dagon!” The child grabs the tip of one of my barbels and starts pulling on it. I lift my head, freeing myself from his grasp. That is not terribly helpful.

“Well I must call you something. Seeing as you are rather small, I shall call you Small One. Come now, let us find your people.” With great care, I clench the back of Small One’s coat in my teeth, only to recoil when a searing heat burns my mouth. The child wears a necklace with a brilliant ruby fastened on the intricate chain. Brushing against the gem with my nose, I feel the same burning as before. A strange aura emanates from the gem, and something in the pit of my heart bids me to keep away from it. No matter. I lift him by his foot and place him in the deepest part of the sled and drape a rough blanket over him. The horned beast attached to the reigns casts me a sidelong glance. “Follow me, if you would,” I say to the beast. It snorts and shakes its hide, but begins walking behind me. There are twin tracks in the ground from the direction that the beast came, still fresh enough that they haven’t been covered by the snow. I decide to follow them.

A small human child alone in the mountains is an unusual sight. Even more unusual is finding a small human child alone in the mountains who is still breathing. There are sharp-fanged beasts in these woods, fleet of foot and much faster when they hear the crying of a child. Quick though they may be, the snow is often much quicker. The frost is a silent killer, and insatiable and indiscriminate in a way the sharp-fanged beasts are not. It could quell the tears of any child. Small One is fortunate to have been found before the frost could get to him, but a child of his size could not have come so deep in the woods on his own. Whoever brought him here must still be nearby.

It could be that the gentle beast pulling the sled was startled by a creature of the woods and ran off, carrying Small One away from his kin. Perhaps there is a kindly father nearby calling his name. I keep my ears sharp, listening for the sound of a human voice.

My scales crinkle. I stop mid-step and direct my gaze toward the trees. A wispy, blurred shape darts around the base of a tall pine. Peering around the other side I see nothing, but I am not fooled. “I have greater business than playing a game of hiding with a spirit. Reveal yourself.”

A moment passes. Then two small, glowing eyes blink in midair with a playful glimmer. A perfectly round body materializes around the eyes. The spirit bobs up and down in the air like a snowflake caught on the wind, pure and white and weightless. It squeaks out a sound like “Kyu,” and dances back around the tree, weaving through the pines until it settles in Small One’s lap. It chirps a content, “Kyu kyu.”

The spirit glows softly at first, then more brightly as Small One nestles closer to it. A gentle heat radiates from the spirit as Small One’s fingers turn sun-touched. The child tucks the wool blanket under his chin and closes his eyes.

I have heard tale of a kind of forest spirit that watches over lost children, but this is my first time seeing one with my own eyes. This spirit must have been watching over Small One before I found him to keep him safe from the frost. “Will you be coming along with us?” I ask the spirit. “I would be grateful for your help, but I am afraid I do not know the name of your kind. What should I call you, spirit?”

“Kyu kyu!”

Once again I am left to my discretion. The spirit is small, but I already have a Small One in my midst. It wouldn’t do to call them by the same name. As it is white and round as a ball of hail, I decide to call it as such. “From now on I will know you as Asina,” I say to the spirit, a little ball of hail. It chirps, apparently pleased.

Following the tracks becomes more difficult as time goes on. Snow falls from a blank sky, filling the twin valleys on the ground flake by flake. The more time passes, the more hope fades. Only a vague outline of the trail remains.

A rusty scent trickles through the pine. “Asina, stay close to Small One,” I say, chasing the scent between the trees. It is the smell of the long end of a claw after a hunt, the scent that stains the fur of a predator’s mouth.

The chase ends. By the rotting wood of a fallen tree, a figure is slumped on the ground in a pool of red, a limp arm stretched in our direction, fingers reaching towards the direction from which we’ve come.

The direction from which Small One left, alone on a sled.

She sleeps in eternal nightmare, a face twisted in unknowable agony. Jagged lines are carved into her back, filled with pools of blood. Her raw, red eyes are fixed on Small One, even now, in death’s sleep. A long stick protrudes from her back, wedged just under her neck. The glint of metal shines where the stick meets her flesh. The hunter that caught her was not one of the forest, but one of her own kind.

Unnatural shadows surround her body, each one steeped in blood-stained snow. Sharp weapons decorate the ground around the shadows as if they had fallen from the hands of their wielders. Raking a claw through one of the shadows, I realize that it is ash–still hot with the heat of a vanished fire. I try to discern where one streak of ash ends and another begins, counting nearly a dozen distinct piles. Each is shaped like a man, some huddled in on themselves, others splayed out across the snow. These men, were they pursuing Small One’s mother? And if so, what manner of beast could have brought them to such a fiery end?

Small One climbs out of the sled and approaches on wobbly feet. “Stay back, Small One,” I command. He hesitates, swaying on tiny legs before he continues to come closer. I do not stop him. Hiding from cruelty does not make it go away, nor will hiding this woman’s body bring her back to life.

A lumpy moan leaves Small One’s throat as he collapses beside the woman. He holds her hand and his face folds into lines as tears stream down his cheeks. “Mama,” he cries, softly at first, then urgently as his mother refuses to meet his eye. “Mama!”

Youth is heartache. One who is young stands to lose so much, all while his heart is not yet hardened to the coldness of the world that takes it from him. Each lesson aches with the pain of a thousand broken bones. “Cry, Small One. Do what you must to bear this heartache.”

The jewel around Small One’s neck begins to glow crimson red, pulsating with each cry that escapes Small One’s throat. Unease sinks into my scales as the jewel begins to crack and falter against the power that has possessed it.

Taking the rough blanket off the sled, I clench it in my teeth and jerk my head so that it unfolds and falls over Small One’s mother. The snow will cover her body. She will return to the earth, and her spirit will be free to roam the land. The glow of the jewel begins to fade.

Small One’s crying is rife with screams and sobs. Now that the body is covered by the blanket, Small One no longer searches for her eyes. But he does not leave. He cries until he slumps over in bitter sleep. I pick him up and place him back in the sled where Asina is waiting to keep him warm. With only a slight tug at the reins, the long-horned beast follows me once more. Night is falling. We must keep moving.

Even in his sleep, Small One sniffles and coughs. The day my father passed from this world my tears overflowed and turned into rivers. I have not felt such sadness in many centuries, but the rivers still speak to me, and in their voices is an echo of the sadness that once carved a hole through my heart and across the mountainside.

☶☴☵

Small villages are tucked away along the mountainside for those who know where to look. They are often hidden between rigid valleys, or amid a cluster of trees so tight that they are nearly impossible to catch sight of even from the sky. However, even separated by sheer drops in rocky cliff sides and dense forest filled with beasts and wicked spirits, the humans have found a means to connect themselves to one another.

Just above the trees, lines of thick rope run from one small village to the next. This system of ropes continues all the way down the mountain where it connects to the large settlements sprawl across the foothills. Day and night, large baskets travel up and down the mountain on these lines, supplying food, fabric, furs, tools, and all manner of other items to villages all the way up the mountain. The line is powered by wooden wheels churned by the water of my rivers and maintained by a handful of trading posts along the route. By following the lines, I will find the village from which this child hails.

Baskets pass by overhead, a sure sign that we are on the right path. It is not long before we reach a well-worn trail carved into the side of the mountain. It is a narrow trail with the steep wall on one side and the plunging depth of the cliff-face on the other. The chasm is filled with such thick fog that it is impossible to see the bottom, making it appear to go on forever. At first I wonder if the bulky body of the hairy beast pulling the sled will be able to maneuver on the slim mountain pass. However, the beast demonstrates a natural deftness that belongs only to creatures that have been born in the mountains. It follows the trail without any sign of hesitation, the ornamental bells on its back ringing gently with the motion.

I take flight, abandoning the treacherous trail for the open air above the trees. A billow of smoke rises in the distance, surely a sign that we are drawing nearer to a human settlement. It is not uncommon to see them lighting blazing fires and dancing around them, flittering like leaves in the wind around the flames. Perhaps it is even a signal meant to call home the woman who will never return, and the child that left with her.

The sun sits heavy in the sky, dipping toward the horizon. A soft hum comes from all directions as the light dims and the trees begin to sing. The spirits of the forest come together in a great harmony, a melody that twists and spirals in the way that a stem curls out of the ground and blossoms with flowers.

Asina jumps into the air, bobbing along the trail as it joins the chorus of spirits. Small One’s head lifts as he rises out of sleep. Silently, he watches as Asina becomes one with the song. The child knows as well as any living thing that tonight there is peace in the forest.

“The forest does not know death,” I say to Small One. “In the forest, life does not end. It only moves from one place to another. And so, the forest sings, for all is right among the trees on this night.” Tears become rivers become animals. Mothers become dirt become flowers. “Still, you are quite small. The things I say must sound quite strange to you.”

Small One does not answer. He watches, entranced, as Asina floats in the air, rising and falling with the song. Then, Small One opens his mouth in a wide circle. Misshapen sounds leave his throat in choppy bursts unlike any sound a forest spirit could make, but they are washed into the current of the song just the same.

I fly higher in the sky. Small One does not need my rambling to understand what all living things already know. Though Small One is a human and humans are prone to folly, he is too young to have forgotten the way of the woods. My scales shimmer in the last light of day as I glide through the golden music and remember what I too had once forgotten.

☶☴☵

When we reach a clearing in the deep of the forest, I stop by a rushing river to allow the beast to rest. Its breaths come in heaves as it laps up the running water. “Go on,” I encourage the beast. “You have earned this rest.”

A whisper rises from the river. “Be watchful, Sureksi,” the water warns. “Evil is near.”

My claws dig into the snow as I heed the river’s words. Something malevolent encroaches. I can sense it, though I cannot determine its nature. I peer at the ruby around Small One’s neck, growing ever more confident that something vile is contained inside.

Small One looks up at me. “Dag,” the child says as if declaring a fact.

“Yes, child. I am a dragon.”

Small One sucks on the thumb of one of his hands and grabs one of my barbels in one hand. I lower my head, allowing the child to climb onto my neck. He curls into a tiny ball, tucked up against the long part of my fin. His soft breathing warms my neck. I stay still throughout the night, careful not to wake Small One.

Upon waking, I notice a light pulsing deep in the forest. It floats up and down in the air as it comes closer. “Kyu!” Asina shouts as it draws near.

“You are a welcome sight, little spirit,” I say. “Have you found something in the forest”

Asina answers by bobbing through the air like a lantern on the water. The spirit guides me through the forest. The long-horned beast trails behind me, plodding through the snow with a sturdy rhythm now that it has rested. Before long, old, deep lines from sled runners appear in the snow and baskets pass by high overhead. The beast walks faster. It is clear that this is a path that it knows by heart.

The entrance to the village is adorned with a wooden arch. The weathered red paint on the arch is flaking and fading, but pieces of bright paper and shiny bells hanging across it show that it has not been forgotten. The long-horned beast stops in the central square and nuzzles the ground, picking at small sprigs of grass. Small One sits quietly in the sled, holding Asina in both his arms.

Around them, what may have once been buildings are smoldering piles of ash on the snow. Here and there, charred beams of wood remain standing–frames of buildings that no longer exist. Quietude pervades the village. There are no sounds of life, not even the cawing of birds.

And yet there are no signs of death either. Scattered around the village there are unnaturally dark shadows, shaped as if they were the shadows of someone who was once there, but is no longer. It is the same kind of shadow that surrounded the body of Small One’s mother deeper in the woods. All the residents of this village are gone, reduced to ash.

Whatever happened to this village, no one is left to speak of it.

Evil is near. The river must have seen what happened. It must have known what caused it. The necklace glows on Small One’s chest, dimmer now than it was before, but still unmistakably shining, as if something within it were on fire. The monster that I saw by the river was no mere illusion. Some evil thing had taken control of Small One. But I have witnessed the purity in this child’s heart. Whatever evil has been sealed within the jewel, I believe in the deepest depth of my soul that it is a separate being from Small One.

All that is bound will one day be unbound. Whether it be the day that Small One returns to the earth or any day that comes before, the spirits of the boy and the jewel will be set free from each other. All life moves, flowing like a river from one stream to the next. It cannot be pinned to a place or a thing. Perhaps, then, a shaman who is wise in the way of spirits and magic could free Small One from the curse that hangs around his neck.

I rub my nose in the soot of what was once a home, and with it I draw a mark on Small One’s forehead. It is the mark of the cursed. Any human who sees it will know to take the child to a spirit healer. Curious about the soot, Small One crawls toward it and dirties his hands. Same as I have done, Small One stretches his arms and draws enigmatic scribbles on my face with black soot.

Something in my heart stings. “Come now, Small One, let us find a new home for you.” I drop the child back in the sled and we carry on through what remains of the village, the burnt smell of decaying wood hanging heavy in the air.

Just outside the village, high on a hill, there is a platform fitted with a water wheel and a supply of baskets. The wind blows stronger here, so high in the air. Snow cuts more like shards of glass as it whips through the sky. Baskets pass by, traveling from one village to the next all the way down the mountain. It will be safer for Small One to travel like this, up in the air where the hunters cannot track him. “Our journey together comes to an end,” I say. I will follow the basket down the mountain from much lower to the ground so that the hunters will not be able to catch sight of me. But once I see that Small One has been taken care of, I will leave. There is no place for me among the humans. I belong to the mountain. “Look after him for a while longer, Asina.” The spirit trills in agreement before hopping into a basket, waiting for me to place Small One beside it.

Small One stares at me with eyes as round and wide as the full moon. His mouth turns into a wide, open-mouthed smile full of tiny teeth. “Ma!”

“No, child, I am not…” I do not finish the thought. Instead, I grip the child by the back of the neck and place him in the basket next to Asina. “You will be with your people soon. It has been an honor, Small One.”

Small One grabs the tip of my barbel and tugs. I allow this for just a moment before gripping the handle of the basket with my teeth. I lift the basket toward the rope–

A carnivorous pain tears through me. My jaw loses grip on the basket. Whisking my tail around, I save the basket from falling down the steep hill. A roar burns out of my throat. Something sharp ricochets off my skin. A lone figure stands on the ridge of the hill, huffing, and readying another spear. He stands slanted, his clothes burned and covered in ash. And he is young, not a warrior and barely even a man. Rage burns through his eyes as the tip of the weapon drops, not aiming at me, but at Small One.

From charred fingers, the spear goes flying toward the basket perched on the ledge. In a flash of movement, I lunge toward Small One.

The sharp end pierces through my left eye and runs through the back of my head where it continues its flight behind my fin and over the edge of the hill. Small One is screaming. All else feels distant. The dull thundering of feet resonates through the ground as the men run toward us. I try to rise to a stand, but my claws only flail in the snow.

So this is where my spirit will make its departure. It is strange. After all this time, I think I had begun to feel as though the life that had flown into me so long ago would never flow out. I flick my tail around the basket as if to swat the hunter away from Small One in one last act of meager defense.

A scream punctures the air. Through my remaining eye, I see the blurred shape of the hunter as he stumbles back. Heat radiates from behind me.

The snow melts underneath me. A demon wreathed in flames jumps in front of me, a dozen arms splayed in a fan against the hunter’s weapons. It screeches in a voice that is both like the scream of a dying animal and the roar of the beast that killed it. Buried amid the sound there is something else, something softer, something like the sound of a human child brought to desperate tears.

The demon’s arms lash out at peculiar angles, swiping the hunter. With the brush of its fiery red hands, the hunter crumbles. His skin turns to ash as he collapses. By the time he hits the ground, they are nothing more than shadowy smears of soot in the shape of a thing that was once a person. Flames consume the hilltop, spreading smoke down the mountainside.

The boy hunter is gone, reduced to a stained shadow like his brothers in the village, but the demon’s rampage only grows hotter. I struggle to come to a stand. “Stop this, Small One!” I shout. My voice is lost in the whisking of the flames. Smoke swallows the demon from my view.

The demon races down the hill spreading wildfires in its wake. Trees scream as they splinter and fall. Animals with burning pelts run with nowhere to go. The wailing of the forest spirits overwhelms all else. Their voice is their tears. This is no curse. This is the work of a devil on earth. This is a demon of fire trapped within the body of a human child. This is beyond what humans can cure, beyond what gods can cure. This is an ancient evil, a remnant of the time when the world was young and magic was wild, and villains could become demons and princesses could become dragons.

Blood drips from my eye as I look toward the sky and call the rains. “Come to me now from all corners of the earth,” I plead with the clouds that were once my rivers. “Come to me now in my moment of greatest need.”

A gleam cuts through the smoke ahead of me. A bright blue sapphire shines on the necklace’s chain, glowing like the moon in a summer sky. I grip the chain in my teeth and run, stumbling down the mountain toward the demon. It runs fast, faster than I could ever keep pace with. A cry of pain leaves my mouth as I take to the sky. My body fights me, but the winds are at my tail. The spirits call to me, delivering me their prayers. I will answer them. I must.

All across the mountain, rivers surge past their banks and rush over the land to combat the violent flames that burn straight through them. I chase the tail of the demon through endless smoke.

I fly in a spiral around the demon, trapping it in place with my body. Its hands stretch toward me and my skin blackens at the touch of its fingers. The necklace dangles in my jaws as I search for an opening. The demon keeps three hands hovering around its neck, waiting to swat away anything that might approach. The smoke builds, billowing thicker and higher as I try to outmaneuver the demon. It begins to snuff out my vision, then my mind. The world dims until even the flames licking my body are warmly numb.

A dim glow diffuses through the smoke. Asina hovers in front of the demon, singing the song of the forest in a single, wavering voice. The smoke nearly snuffs out the glow of the spirit’s body, but it continues to sing. The arms close in around Asina, hovering with open palms around it, waiting to snap shut and snuff out the spirit’s light forever. But something holds it back.

My voice leaves my throat without me realizing it. It finds a soft harmony with Asina as it sings a tune I had forgotten it could sing. From the sky up above, the rain finally comes. The flames around us shrink into the dirt.

The outline of a human child appears amid the dying fire, a wobbly song coming from his mouth. Smoke fills the air as the fire around us dies. I lay the necklace on Small One’s neck, and the gem turns deep, ruby red once more. The child stares at me, a look of childish joy on his face. I put my face up to his. “I thought I had lost you,” I say, sheets of rain running down my face. Small One opens his arms and wraps them around my nose. The tiny sound of his heartbeat sets right something that slanted within me.

We stay on the hilltop for a long while. My wounds begin to close as I watch the rains fight the fires that rage across the mountain with blurry sight. My eye will never fully heal. When the sun begins to set, no song fills the forest air. Tonight the spirits mourn.

It is late when the long-horned beast returns to us from where it had taken refuge in the woods. When I stand, Small One climbs into the sled on his own. Asina perches in his lap. I will teach this child to control fire, and I will always bring the rain. It is clear to me now where the child belongs. “I will teach you all that I have learned of spirits and demons,” I promise the child. “I will teach you how to command them, how to live alongside them. I will protect you, and from now on, you shall be my small one.” I take to the air, leading my small one into a world that feels brand new for me, too.