Paper Dragon

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Or at least that’s what the old timer’s say under their breath as I walk past their houses.

I don’t react, because it’s true and I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I shrug deeper into my hood, slouch and live down to all of their expectations. When people expect nothing from you, they are easy to fool.

Once I’m out of sight, I circle round through the sunny wood that encircles the village nestled in the dead end of the Valley. Pale new born sunlight filters through the sparse trees. Before my great, great, great grandfather made the valley his home the trees crushed the light under their branches. Their shadows created a haven for dark creatures, thoughts and actions. Now tree trunks thin around as my thigh, spread their branches in vain attempt to smother the light dappled the leaf strewn forest floor. As I slip between them, they whisper their poison. They don’t like me. It’s mutual.

Sweeping around from my home where the mountains come together and form a jagged bowl of stone, I settle into the sparse undergrowth to watch the hard packed dirt road. The cover is thin, enough for me to blend in, make myself invisible. It’s a family talent.

Only be seen when you want to be.

Every bright moon day for the last three months my grandmother has sent me down to watch the road, the only access into and out of the Valley, unless you can fly.

She won’t tell me what she fears is coming.

She’s been getting thinner and thinner, her chest rattling with a barking cough. I’m worried. I tell her I am worried; she rejects my worry and fuss.

“It is just another part of our journey,” she says her eyes burning with inner fire.

She’s not afraid.

I am.

She’s all I have. My parents embarked on their next stage when I was too little to remember them. It has always been just me and my grandmother and the stigma of dragon.

I watch as the light matures, colours brighten, my skin drinks the warmth and nothing happens.

That’s what it’s like living here. Nothing ever happens. It’s always the same. People whisper, the trees chatter and we’re not welcome.

Bored I hold my hand up between my eyes and the sun, my flesh molten light around the darker shadows of my bones. I’ve studied mine, and when the chance has arisen studied theirs but I can’t see the difference that marks me as dragon and them not dragon. Sometimes I wonder if it is a spiteful trick, a family chosen, indelibly marked as other so the rest can belong.

Once we were marked, did our potential grow to encompass the difference making their prejudices real? Did they make us dragon? Or is our soul dragon, distilled from the once great and fearsome reptiles of flame and sunlight?

I wonder, but then when I hide inside the bones of my great, great, great grandfathers head mounted on a wooden shaft that juts from the peak of the village hall roof, dragon thrums in my bones.

I shrug the twisty sink hole of thought away. I have been here too often, there is no answer, only what is and what it means for me, for grandmother. We are outcast, nothing will change.

Resigned to fate, I turn my face to catch the sunlight as a trembling of sound announces something new. I settle deeper into camouflage and peer through the spindly grass, as a procession approaches.

Their horses are shod with metal. It is base and impure but it calls to be freed. The air thrums with the protest, trapped rings and metal eyelets worked against filthy leather. The iron skinned wheels of the carriage, scream as they grind against the earth.

Two riders clomp past, iron mail strapped against sweaty flesh, brass in their purses, blood sickened swords on their hips. Next the carriage, black as night, curtains shelter the interior, indie gold sings a sad refrain. The driver has copper in his purse, wears a ring of polished steel in his septum and seven lugs set into his ears.

At the rear, four guards mounted on thick war-horses, chain mail begs for release, sheathed swords weep in sorrow. Not an eyelid flickered in my direction.

Not locals.

I sank deeper into the roadside weeds and consider as the procession as they rolled into the village. Was this what Grandmother had me watching for? Should I head back and tell her? Should I slip into the village and see what it is all about first?

Better to take her all the facts or she would just send me back.

The strangers entered the final curve of the road into the village, I stood and shook off one camouflage for another. Reaching up I slipped my hood back to settle around my shoulders and threaded my fingers through my massed dark brown dread locks, worn piled together in a ridge on top of my head until they winnowed into a long tail that fell down my back, woven with trinkets. Each stroke of my hands, coaxed the familiar illusion of deep black shining curls cropped and cultivated in the manner of the village boys.

As my hair changed, my features stretched, settled into the wide honest face loved by the village. Fingers tucked into my utility belt, I move with his cultivated swagger as I stride after the foreign carriage, as Jasper the blacksmith’s apprentice.

A grin spreads across my false face, no place here for Paper – that damned dragon.

The arrival of the strangers is unexpected, I note, as Jasper swaggers into the main street. Loen the wine makers apprentice dashes past, a barrel on his shoulders, his cheeks red as he puffs under the weight of his master’s finest. Veen struts by holding a glass jar, already extravagant, filled with pink salt, forbidden from all tables except Casen the Villages Head man’s and the merchants own. As Jasper rolls past the bakery, I catch a glimpse of the baker’s daughter loading steaming fat loaves onto tray’s held by her lumpen dolt of a brother.

Bread and salt, to ensure a return, wine a substitute for blood shared not shed. The strangers must be important. None of the merchants moved so fast when the village was graced by a tinker or travelling band of performers.

All activity was focused on the village hall, the carriage had drawn to a halt under the hollow jaw bones of Sidan the first Dragon to enter the Valley. Now it wasn’t moving I could feel an absence of warmth radiating from a trunk strapped to the back of the carriage. The iron bands that held the wood together tried to pull away from its contents, as I watched I felt rivets loosen as the true metal worked itself away from the traitor.

Silver.

Whatever was in the trunk, it was made of silver.

Even as I recognised the poisonous substance, I felt its attention catch, on my awareness. I felt it reach out, to stroke the silver chains, that sealed my grandfather’s enormous jaws, wound around and around, as though even in death the village feared they would unhinge and spew forth a torrent of flame.

Lazily silver awareness stroked the linked metal, I shuddered as if the joint foulness of the silver’s caress feathered along my own skin.

For a second it shivered in place, then in horror I felt its attention turn from my grandfather, unseen tendrils seeking. I swallowed, past the rock that seemed to have lodged in my throat as I understood it was seeking out dragon. Seeking me.

“Jasper! Where have you been? Get to the forge now.”

The spell of the silver broken, I turned towards the voice.

A substantial woman bustled towards me, her hair braided into the tight whorls of the married, her skirts full if pock marked by tiny burns, her arms the match of any tavern arm wrestling challenger. Jasper and I smiled in genuine concert, I liked Bell, she held a soft spot for Jasper.

“Bell, top of the morning to you.” Jasper’s grin, conjured a look of indulgent frustration on Bell’s face.

She hustled up to us, took our arm and rushed us, round the back of the forge. “Casen has been looking for you. Where have you been?” She chided as she thrust a leather apron into our hands and fussed with the coals in the forge.

Jasper raised his eyebrows, I added a jaunty wiggle to sell the lie, “Well now Bell, you know a gentleman would never be so crass as to answer such a question.”

She flicked a pair of leather working gloves against his cheek in affectionate censure. “Now none of that. When my husband finds you, you have been running an errand for me.”

I slipped on the gloves, as Jasper rolled out the charm, “What would I do without you Bell?”

“Spend more time in the stocks, I’ve no doubt.” She huffed, a smile teasing the corner of her earnest face.

“What’s happened that everyone is in such a flap?” I ask as Jasper pumps the bellows giving the flames in the forge much needed breath.

“There’s some important visitors just arrived in the village. We weren’t expecting them.” Bell hustled to look out the back door of the forge.

“Must be important, I saw Lowe carrying his masters private reserve, Veen’s broken out the pink salt and the baker was loading up his best bread.” Jaspers lips formed inane conversation as my mind whirred. “Who do you think it is?”

Bell shot a look at him over her shoulder as she slipped out the door, “Whisper has, it be the Silver Fist.”

Jasper continued to smile, his head nodding in excited agreement, as the blood in my veins grew cold and sluggish. Dragon hunters.

I turned Jasper’s eyes to regard Bell, his hands stilling on the bellows.

“You think they are here for,” Jasper, lowered his voice, “them?”

Bell met Jasper’s eyes. The truth naked in her expression. She slipped outside just as her husband bustled in the open front doors of the forge.

“Where have you been boy?” Casen’s voice rumbled like mountains groaning.

“On an errand for Bell.” Jasper looked up from the bellows his expression unrepentant and unconvincing as my mind whirred through possibilities.

“My wife has a kind heart, don’t play on her kindness.” Casen warned, as he caught the edge of the forge door and pulled it half shut behind him as he reached over and clipped Jasper’s ear with his huge burn scarred hand

“I was picking flowers for a girl.” The lie fell from Jaspers lips, as I turned his head to feign embarrassment.

“I ‘ve told you not to play with the local girls.” Casen as he moved across the forge and opened his stores cupboard, “You’ve got a brighter future, than being shackled to one of them.”

“Sorry,” Jasper’s tone was contrite, I was thinking of excuses to leave. Dragon hunters, this is what grandmother had been afraid of, I had to get home and warn her.

Casen reached for the top shelf, his huge frame searching for something shoved into the very back corner, “Viridian of the Silver Fist is inside, he’s here on other business, but I have convinced him to meet you and if he is pleased, he’ll take you with him to the Citadel and put you forward as a candidate for the Iron Fist.”

Casen kept his excitement under tight check, but I could hear the echo of the man’s own thwarted dreams in the whisper of wistfulness in his tone. In the depths of his middle-aged eyes the hopes of a younger man simmered.

I drew the appropriate expression of excitement and uncertainty across Jasper’s face. “Do you really think he’ll take me? What’s his other business here?”

“His business is not your concern. He’ll meet with you in the morning after his business is concluded. Go home, bathe and put on your best clothes, pack only your tools.” He pulled a leather satchel from the shelf, strode across the room and shoved it into my hands, “Meet me at the hall at sunrise tomorrow, bring that damned dagger you forged. Don’t be late.”

Casen, turned, opened the forge door and strode back through the doors into the main street towards the hall.

I looked down at the leather bag in Jasper’s hands, dragon hide, a yet another way the village desecrated my family. My fingers trembled with anger; I felt my Jasper mask slip as I stepped out of the forge and raised burning eyes to the darkened doorway of the hall.

Just out of sight, in the shadows, a presence stirred, a darkness I’d never felt, but heard about as the fire burned to coals in Grandmother’s kitchen, Dragon hunters.

Dragon hunters here in the village.

I stepped back inside the forge my mind racing, selected the best tools from the racks and placed them inside Sidan’s skin.

Satchel slung across my chest, I dropped the façade of Jasper, drew my hood up over my dreadlocks, and opened the back door of the forge and faded out into the sparse woods.

Grandmother had said she’d felt danger coming to the valley, she was right.

The woods gave way to bare rock, seamed with ore, as I climbed the broken ground in the hollow of the valley to our home. As I climb the ore whispers greetings to me, welcomes me in the same way the sparse woods reject me. Here what I am is what I am, dragon.

I push over a jagged rise of stone, below me cupped in a granite palm is the house Sidan made, rough stones coaxed into neat fit, not even a slender stem of grass could slip between them. When I asked, how, Grandmother said that Sidan had been a Stone dragon. When I asked what that meant, she told me I would understand when I was older.

I’m older now and I still don’t understand.

I cast my eyes across our patch of garden, where Grandmother coaxes greens and vegetables from the soil to feed us. She was not there.

A feeling of unease prickled my gut.

A thin trickle of smoke meandered out of the stone chimney, perhaps she had ducked inside. I started down the slope, the shale shifted under my feet as I moved too fast.

Across the stony yard and with a quick duck under the lintel of the door, my eyes search her out. She is seated at our stone table, her back to me, a mug on the table in front of her. No steam curls from the top of the mug.

Frozen in place I listen. The wheeze and rattle of her breath is silent.

Heart slamming against the inside of my rib cage, I move, touch her shoulder. Her body slumps over the table, skittling the full mug in front of her. I sink to my haunches, despair settles deep in my heart. Liquid spills across the table, gathers at the edge and patters in uneven drips onto the floor.

Sunlight stalks across the open doorway behind me, before I stir. Grandmother is gone. There is nothing to be done but follow her wishes.

Outside the sun is high and slightly to the left, before the end of the afternoon I need to assemble the pyre. My body moves, gathers the wood from the store, builds the platform, tucks dried moss under, between, around.

I save nothing for later.

There is nothing left in the Valley for me.

The sun is wedged between the twin mountains that overshadow our hollow when I carry her feather light body outside and lay her in the centre of the pyre. Before she always felt substantial, permanent, now the soul that gave her weight has left.

I know that she is no longer with me, still I waste time picking her favourite wild flowers and threading them through her hair, before I enter our house and scoop embers from the dying fire.

The sun is but a sliver peeking over the black cliffs above the hollow. The sky is stained the deep red of my ruined heart, as I nestle the embers in the dry bed of tinder and lean forward to fan them with my dragon’s breath, no flame but fuel for ignition.

The flames burst into song. They sing and eat the wood. I lift my chin, open my mouth and join the singing. A song, without words, taught to me by my grandmother, dragon requiem, to aid flight from one stage to the next.

Tears sizzle on my cheeks as my throat intones the notes. My mind wishes her safe journey. My heart longs for her to return.

The flames bathe her in golden light as my song ends. I sink to my haunches and bury my face in my hands.

Stones skitter under incautious feet.

My attention skips from the pyre to the rim of the ridge that leads down into our hollow. Two figures stand in silhouette, their features shadowed, in their hands silver mutters.

The Silver Fist.

Come with the metal of the moon and darkness to bind a dragon’s light.

Emotions spin through me, lightning-fast kaleidoscopic patterns, barely registering before the next engulfs me. As the two begin to descend into our hollow, my awareness widens to encompass four others encroaching from around the ridge. Six.

Too many.

I lift my hood, and move to the opposite side of the pyre, where the light will draw the eye if they should look and blend into the scattering of boulders and shale.

I burn with impotence. Dragon yet not dragon. If I were like Sidan, I would roar from my hiding place and douse the Silver Fists in flame, melt the cool darkness of metal in their hands before moon rise leant it power.

But I am not like Sidan, I am powerless as they gather round my grandmother’s pyre. At least they have come too late, she is free of whatever fate they intended for her. As the flames die, and the moon rises high to frown above the hollow, the six stand, cool metal in their hands poised for action.

Gradually a feeling spawns deep in my guts. An awareness of light and power; it feels like grandmother. I take a deep breath and squash the feeling. There is no time for wistful dreams.

Amongst the dying coals of the pyre green light begins to bloom and spill. I lift my eyes in wonder as the ashes and embers sift, throwing emerald sparks into the air. I stare into the heart of the pyre, as at its centre a shining lithe shape uncurls.

A luminescent living green head rises from the coals supported by a long slender neck. Curled green lumps behind it unfurl into crumpled glittering wings. With a snap, both eyelids open, revealing the warmed honey colour I remembered. They are my grandmother’s eyes.

My heart lurched in my chest; her head swung in my direction. Our eyes met.

Now Paper you begin to understand.

Her voice sounded in my head.

Our journey is made up of many parts.

I wanted to call to her, to run to her and be furled in her beautiful wings, to warn her, but my body wasn’t listening to my mind.

“Now!” The command came from one of the six Silver Fists who surrounded the pyre.

As one they released silver chain nets, that connected in the air over grandmother’s head and fell across her new form. As the silver hit her beautiful luminescent green scales, they darkened and crisped. She lifted her head shrieked into the night; the heartless moon grinned as the chains held her in place.

Five hauled back and down anchoring the silver net as the sixth approached my grandmothers trapped head.

“Earth dragon,” Sixth mused stepping into the firelight, the war of shadow and light on their face making them grotesque, “the citadel will be pleased.”

Slender moonlit pale fingers slipped into a black pouch and pulled out a tinder box made from silver. I watched as quick fingers moved over the box and the lid popped open.

I gasped. One of the Fists turned their head in my direction. What felt like a hook, shot from inside the box and attempted to embed itself into my core.

Under the net, grandmother rose, and screamed, each touch of the foul metal burning her scales.

Each of the Fists holding the net, had to grip tighter all their attention required to keep her in place.

Paper. Go!

My grandmothers voice commanded inside my head. This time my body obeyed. Drawing the world around me I moved unseen back into the scar at the heart of the valley.

“You’re only hurting yourself.” I heard Sixth say as I faded into the landscape, “This doesn’t have to be so hard.”

As I slipped away, I felt the searching tether slip away from me and reengage with another target. In that same instant I heard a scream from my grandmother.

I kept moving around into the scar, then up onto the edge of the ridge until I could move amongst the rocks, and look back.

They were still around the pyre. The Fists held the silver net. I watched as Sixth walked forward and placed the open mouth of the silver box against my grandmother’s forehead.

I felt rather than saw, it drag her inside.

Horror rose like bile into my throat, as Sixth snapped the lid shut and slipped the box back into the pouch that hung at their waist. Too far away for sound to carry, I saw Sixth gesture to the others, who dropped their net and fanned out searching for something.

I heard the echo of my grandmother’s command in my head.

Go!

I slipped back down off the ridge and moved into the fringes of the hated forest under the traitor moon, my mind stuck on one thought, they were searching for me.

Jasper stood with Casen inside the village hall as dawn rose over the Valley. I hide behind Jasper’s friendly face, and fume as the Silver Fist gathered their bed rolls in preparation to leave.

“Viridian,” Casen called to one of the Silver Fists, who passed their bed roll to another and walked over to where they were standing.

“Casen.”

Jasper’s eyes smiled, as I recognised the pouch hanging at the man’s waist.

“This is the boy I was telling you about. Jasper my apprentice.” Casen nudged me with his hip so Jasper took a step forward.

“Sir.” Jasper ducked his head in awe, I took the opportunity to study the knot on the pouch opening.

“The one you want me to introduce to the Iron Fists?” Viridian cast an assessing eye over Jasper. “Do you have any work to show me boy?”

Jasper shuffled his feet, then unhooked a sheathed dagger from his belt. “I made this.” He held out the dagger for Viridian to assess, even as I longed to tear it from its sheathe and bury it deep in the man’s gut.

Pale fingers took the dagger, unsheathed it and examined the workmanship. “Serviceable. But not impressive, why did you choose this to show me?”

“It can hold sound.” Jasper grinned, “If you sing to it, it can sing back.”

Viridian shoved the dagger back at Jasper. “Show me.”

Jasper unsheathed the dagger; I sang using my voice to imbue the weapon. “Like this and then…” Jasper, flicked the dagger into the air, it flew across the room and embedded itself into one of the wooden pillars that held up the roof. Immediately the song shivered from the steel into the wood. The rafters holding up the roof trembled with the vibration of the song.

Casen strode across the room, wrenched the dagger from the wood and glared at Jasper, “That’s enough, what have I said about playing with this inside?”

I, watched from Jasper’s eyes, as Viridian considered us.

Casen offered the blade back to Jasper, but Viridian intercepted the hilt.

“Can you ride boy?” He asked as he took the sheathe and tied it next to the pouch.

“Yes, sir.” Jasper, looked fit to burst with pride.

Viridian looked at Casen, “Get him a horse. If he’s accepted the Iron Fist will send a messenger with the Guild price.”

Casen’s normally dour expression transformed into a wide grin. “Right away.”

He hurried outside.

Viridian stood in front of Jasper, his eyes narrowed as he considered the boy. “We ride hard, if you don’t keep up we’ll leave you behind.”

“I’ll keep up.” Jasper nodded his enthusiasm.

“We’ll see.” Viridian turned away from him, “We’re taking the boy.” The other Silver Fists paused in their preparations to cast their eyes over in Jasper’s direction. “We leave as soon as his master arrives with a horse.”

Viridian strode outside, and up a step into the carriage. The others hurried to follow.

Jasper, stood watching, his mouth open. His breath rushed out as a solid mass hit him in the gut, he grabbed at it to find he was holding a bed roll. The last Silver Fist, shorter than the others and a couple of years Jasper’s senior, grinned at him.

“Better move your arse boy, he’ll leave you for dead if you slow him down.”

Jasper hurried after him out the door. “I’m Jasper.”

“I’ll see how long you last, before I’ll be taking the trouble to care.” The older boy swung himself into the saddle of the last horse.

Within minutes Jasper was seated on the Villages best horse, bed roll strapped across the back of the saddle, as the procession moved out of town.

Jasper smiled and waved, blowing kisses to the villagers who had come out to wish him well. I watched the backs of the Silver Fists swaying in their saddles and the carriage beyond and planned a rescue.