The Island at the Center

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Tremor was the first. The serpent of the underworld shook the ground with his passing. He opened mouths of earth to swallow men whole.

From the fissures issued forth a sulfurous odor, withering heat, and the second dragon, Miasma. She choked the life from men and beasts caught in her coils. The folk of the Valley had named their home the Pleasant Valley in better days. Miasma killed the "pleasant" when she fouled the Valley's air.

After Tremor and Miasma came Cyclone, who stirred a storm of gyring dust a mile high. The sparks in her cloudbank were not her talons. They belonged to the last dragon of that brood.

Cataclysm, child and destroyer of all, tore his way free with a roar of thunder, a torrent of fire, a cascade of rock. The Valley was left a wasteland by his birth and fiery death.

When at last the smoke cleared, the few explorers who dared look into the Valley found its mountains had grown stark, steep, and jagged. A new generation of dragon now ruled the Valley, trembling its earth, rending its air with their shrieks and their wings, and frothing the lake that had been carved by Cataclysm's thrashing.

The lake was not of water. Its liquid shone silver in the sun. At the center of the lake was an Island. Chaos, in serpentine form, filled the Valley. Yet on the Island at the Center, there was peace.

No dragon landed on the Island, nor flew in its air. The flying, digging, and swimming monsters avoided the place as if by instinct. Not that the Island was devoid of life. A tree grew on the Island. Broader than it was tall, the tree showed starburst leaves with bright golden tops and dull yellow bottoms in all seasons. If it had grown anywhere else, it would have been remarkable. In the Valley, where nothing but dragons lived off the Island, the tree was a miracle.

Over the course of a day, the shadow of the tree touched every inch of the Island. An hour after midday, in high summer, it shaded the west face of the only ruin in the Valley. That is to say, some of the scholars insisted the cluster of irregular pillars must be a ruin. None of the Valley folk remembered a building that stood in its place, and nothing like it could be found on old maps.

To my untrained eye, the pillars looked too irregular to be anything but a natural outcropping of rock. I doubted that Spurius Vergilius Brevys would have wasted my time by having me stare at a rock through his spyglass, however, so I examined the ruin diligently as he made mildly alarming noises behind my back.

When he had struck his wooden mallet against every molecule of timber that formed our ox cart, and spent time grunting at the ox, Brevys said, "Do you see, Oleander?"

"I see the ruin," I said. "The rock, or whatever."

Brevys paced to my side and retrieved the spyglass. After a staring a moment, he shook his head. "A poor angle," he said.

We were standing together at the edge of a precipice, on a mountain of the Valley's east side. We had climbed the road that curved from the dragonless face of the mountain to a place where dirt and boulders had formed a sort of shelf above a slope. Brevys had sworn we were too high above the Valley for a dragon to take interest.

He handed the spyglass back and pointed to a place higher still. "You'll see better there."

In the corner of our shelf, some earlier traveler had built a stairway out of rock. The boulder at the top looked slippery, but it did offer a superior vantage.

I mounted the stair. By the time I reached the top, Brevys had gone back to grunting at the ox. As I watched him, distracted from the spyglass, he coaxed the animal up a ramp into the bed of the cart. Why he wished to do this was a mystery, and it was alarming to see the cart shift under the ox's weight. A wooden clamp, actuated by a hand lever, was all that stopped the cart from rolling over the precipice and plunging to the Valley below.

I had supervised the building of the cart. It had smooth underside, a scooped front, a system of leather thongs for lashing the ox to the bed, and sturdy ropes attached to the bench seat. As I peered down the slope at the gray line that marked where the Valley's ash layer began, I had a premonition as to the meaning of these features.

"Brevys?" I shouted, my voice squeaking a little as I spoke the name.

"You see it?" Brevys answered. "That was quick, Oleander. Well done."

The compliment thrilled me more than I like to admit. I forgot my misgivings and applied the spyglass to my eye. "Actually, I was just- Is this the right way?"

"Exactly right," said Brevys. I could tell from his tone he was enjoying himself. He punctuated the emotion by tapping his helmet, an ugly, cast-iron ornament in the shape of a bowl. The helmet rang, the ox grunted, and I got back to looking through the spyglass.

Almost at once, I spotted what I expected Brevys wanted me to see. Seen from this vantage, nearly due east of the Island, the pillars formed a familiar pattern. Or rather, they nearly did.

There were five pillars. The rightmost, from my vantage, was barely a stump. The second-rightmost pillar was taller, more than three times the stump's height. The middle pillar was somewhat taller. Taken together, the three pillars reminded me of the thumb and first fingers of a hand.

It was at the next pillar that the pattern faltered. The pillar to the left of middle was truncated. Its top was only a little higher than that of the stump. The leftmost pillar was twice its height, making it the shortest of the pillars that seemed to match the pattern.

I lowered the spyglass and said Brevys, "They're almost like-"

I abandoned my sentence because of his gesture. Brevys had taken his seat on the bench of the cart. He was waving his hand in a broad arc. It was the right hand, the hand on which he wore a false finger.

The prosthetic was of ivory, with brass rivets for the joints. Brevys could articulate the upper two knuckles, which the ivory replaced, by tugging the rawhide cord that bound the finger to his palm. I had seen him work the finger so dexterously, its artifice had slipped my mind. Now that I had been reminded, with the pillars for context, I saw why Brevys had brought us such a long way.

"You think the pillars were placed are a message to you," I said, descending the stair.

Brevys gave a tip of his bowl.

I tossed him the spyglass. "Isn't that bit arrogant?"

"Only a bit," he said. "Look, Oleander. You asked what I was doing in Padua." He knocked on the bench. "Fine Italian craftsmanship. And you asked if I would take you on an adventure. Well, here you are!"

He extended a hand to help me onto the bench. I welcomed the help because my chiton is somewhat ill fitting. I gather it at the hips to hide the curves that no amount of hiking or fasting will banish, and wear pleats across the chest for a similar cause, though with less need. The style suits me hardly at all, but so long as I dress this way and clip my hair short, Brevys calls me "Oleander" without batting an eye. I'm not sure what he'd do if he guessed who I am, and I don't mean to find out!

It was after Brevys had secured the rope around our waists that I remembered my misgivings. "Um," was all I got out before Brevys said, "Help me with this, will you?"

He hefted the bundle that had been resting in a gap between the cart's bench and the bed since the start of our journey. With a girth I had suspected belonged to a fat child, before I heard it clacking, I expected it to give me a bone bruise when Brevys dropped it in my arms. But the canvas wrapping around the bundle was surprisingly soft, the whole load surprisingly light. I easily raised the bundle so Brevys could slip his arms through a pair of straps.

"There," he said when the strange costume was complete. He looked over our surroundings with a head turn. I knew from prior experience he was making a mental checking list, a habit I so admired, I couldn't help but follow along.

The cart was beneath us. Check!

The ox was in the bed of the cart. Check!

Below was the Valley, formerly Pleasant, now a waste of dragons, ash, and a probably poisonous lake. Check!

Brevys smiled at the precipice, the slope so steep it might as well have been a cliffside. Remembering, again, that I didn't want to plunge to certain death, I tried to voice my misgivings a final time. Too late.

"Check!" said Brevys, and pulled the lever that released the brake.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" is more-or-less what I said. Only longer, louder, and with a curse on Brevys by every one of my Mother's gods' names.

I would have started on Father's gods, but my eyes were watering from the wind by this time. I buried my face in Brevys's sleeve, gripped his arm as hard as I could. I hope it hurt. Through slitted eyelids I saw the beeswaxed point of Brevys's beard tremble. His waxed mustaches curved back to slap his ears. I am sure that part hurt, at least, but Brevys's smile never faltered.

The cart jolted. The ox bellowed. The cart's wooden wheels exploded to splinters. There was a crunch as the braces that held the axles smashed. The cart picked up speed as, for a moment, it rolled on the axles.

Then the nose dipped. The scooped front dug into ash. There was a moment I was sure the cart would tilt over to crush us. The moment passed and we were gliding, running over the ash like a ship over calm water.

It didn't last. Boulders half-covered in ash tossed us this way and that. If not for the ropes, I would have been thrown from the bench a thousand times.

As the cart slid from the slope to flat ground, we went into a spin. Our back became our front. Brevys whispered, "Come around," in the tone of a gambler who has bet his young wife.

The cart came around. It was rumbling abominably, threatening to fly apart. The ox was moaning. It would have liked to hunker lower in the cart bed, but could barely move, on account of the thongs.

"Time we left," said Brevys. He jumped from the bench. The cart was still skidding, so it quickly left him behind. He jogged to catch up, crying, "Jump, Oleander. Jump!"

I jumped. What else could I do? There were dragons in the Valley. I had to hope the madman who had risked our lives to get us there had a plan to get us out.

My landing was less than graceful. Brevys was close. He caught me out of a tumble. "Run," was all he said.

Running in ash is not like running in sand. I have scaled the Apennines. Running through ash is more like running through mountain snow, only snow doesn't choke you when you stir it into the air.

Brevys and I managed to separate ourselves from the cart by perhaps a quarter-mile before a dragonish shriek drowned out the bellowing of the ox. Brevys seized my shoulder, steered me to a ditch, and cast us both down.

I looked back at the cart. A serpentine body stood perched on the bench. The dragon beat its leathery wings slowly, I suppose to help the wood bear its weight. The ox had been ripped from its lashings. It was gripped in one of the dragon's talons, its top half already concealed in a dirty-green throat, when I saw it last.

"Poor creature," said Brevys.

I turned to where he lay. His face and body were covered in gray-and-black ash.

"You sacrificed that 'poor creature,'" I said.

"Actually," said Brevys, "I meant you. I know how you love ox-bone soup."

That was true, at the time. I haven't enjoyed the dish as much since.

Ignoring the rest of the ox's grizzly end, Brevys fished in the bundle at his back. Handing over what looked like a scroll with a peaked cap at one end, he said, "Here. I'll need you to sling this when I say, 'Now!' No sooner, no later. Understand?"

I had my sling with me, of course. I keep it tucked under the fringe of my chiton, bound to my left leg.

I indicated the dragon, still perched upon our cart. "At him?"

"That one is a lady juvenile, actually. But no, at them."

A sweep of his hand took me eye to a few specks on the horizon. They soon swelled, taking on brass and dirty-green coloration and serpentine shapes. Distance made it hard to judge, but my guess put the smallest at four times the juvenile's size.

"And them," said Brevys. He pointed at a cloud of ash hovering over the ground. It was sweeping our way, propelled by more serpentine bodies. These lacked wings, but they slithered with such swiftness, I can't imagine they missed them at all.

"You're mad," I said. I shook the scroll in Brevys's face. "How will this help?"

"You'll see," was all he said. He hopped up and ran in the direction of the lake, which happened to be towards the flying dragons.

What could I do? I followed. The juvenile dragon spotted us at once. After a last crunch of ox bones, she shrieked, beat her wings, and took to the air. Because it was easy, she tossed the cart over as she rose.

The other flying dragons had drawn close enough to count. There were four of the adults, and one additional juvenile. If it hadn't been shrieking its plan to gobble us up, I would have thought the red and black stripes of the juvenile pretty.

I didn't count the wingless dragons. The rasp of their slithering, combined with their hissing breath, was enough to kill my desire to look.

As I caught up to Brevys, he said, "Shake the scroll in my face again, please." I thought he was using our last moments to tease me, but his look was sincere. He had something in his hand. Was that flint and steel?

I held out the scroll. Brevys gave a twist to the wad of paper that capped the peakless end. A short length of cord extended. Brevys stuck steel to flint. After two tries, he ignited the cord.

"Straight overhead, Oleander," said Brevys. He caught my shoulders, dug his feet into the ash to slow us, and shouted, "Now!"

One day, I will write a chronicle of the slinger's art. When I do, I will note that there exists no method, taught to soldiers, for slinging a missile straight up. Then again, there exists no method for slinging a missile shaped like a scroll, either. There are methods for slinging burning missiles, but I used none of them on that day. Instead, I did what I find myself doing more and more the longer I travel with Spurius Vergilius Brevys. I improvised.

Leaping in the air, I twisted my body in a vertical version of my usual, horizontal windup. The ground seemed to take its time to meet me. I was able to watch the burning scroll fly into the air, not quite straight overhead, but close. At a height that split the difference between me and the closest set of fangs, the scroll exploded.

I was stunned, also blinded, as the lights that streak from the scroll were incredibly bright. I fell dazzled, expecting to have my wind knocked out by the ground.

Instead, I was caught in a pair of strong arms. Brevys held me a moment, murmuring, "Oleander? I'm sorry. I didn't think. Your poor eyes." I blinked and was able to make him out as a dark patch against the bright. "Can you run? We really should."

"Yes," I said.

He set me on my feet and started running immediately, dragging me by the arm. After peering at the blurry ground for what must have been a minute, I could see well enough to check the soundness of our flight.

The dragons appeared to be fighting among themselves. Fangs snapped, talons rasped, and shrieks in a dozen octaves tore the air.

Brevys said, "They fared worse than you because of the third eyelid. Snaps shut when the eye is in danger. Leaves them blind and a bit cranky."

"Only a bit," I said.

"Can you help me a little more?" said Brevys. "I mean, can you see enough to help?"

I shook off his grasp. He dropped a step behind, what I could see of his face looking chastened, but he soon brightened when I said, "I can see well enough to try."

"Excellent," he said, and stopped running. We had come, to my surprise, all the way to the lake's edge. At this distance, the liquid in the lake looked like quicksilver, except where the arcing backs of dragons made it froth.

As my eyes flicked from the dragons behind to the dragons ahead, Brevys unrolled the canvas of his bundle. Inside was a sort of frame, made of soft, light wood, that Brevys took care assembling. Waving away my attempts to help, he pivoted some parts of the frame and rotated others. After a few, tense minutes, he had a recognizable boat shape sitting on the canvas in front of him.

"Now for the clever part," he said. He caught up one end of the canvas and nodded for me to catch the other end. Working as his reflection, I folded the canvas over the frame, securing the edges by linking hooks to loops.

When the work was finished, we had a fragile, canvas-covered version of a ferryman's craft. It looked fit to cross a mud puddle, but the smile Brevys gave me said he would trust it on the open sea.

"Brevys," I said, "do you ever have an impulse that doesn't seem likely to kill you and your friends?"

He looked thoughtful. Then, instead of answering directly, he said, "Have I told you of home? The family villa, I mean, in Gaul."

We had spoken of our homes, though I only vaguely. I glanced in the direction of the dragons. They seemed on the verge of settling their differences, but hadn't quite. "Yes," I said. "You have."

"You know what I lost in a raid of the slavers."

I did. It made me wonder if Brevys was he telling me he had a death wish. It would have explained much. But no.

"I learned a lesson from loss, Oleander. Do you know what it was? When the worst has happened, there's no sense worrying about anything else. What would you say was the worst moment of this adventure? Flying down the mountain, losing the ox, almost being eaten-"

"They were all horrible."

"So what," said Brevys, "can you fear from a simple boat ride?"

If he had given me time, I feel I might have listed a thing or two. But he shoved off at once, pushing the canvas boat onto the lake. He didn't board, however, but held out his truncated hand, offering to help me in first. I glanced again at the dragons. A cloud of ash, serpent heads, and flapping wings was looming. I hopped in the boat.

Still, Brevys didn't join me. Instead, he held to the frame with one hand while untying the strap of his helmet with the other.

"Would you do one more thing for me, Oleander?"

"If it will get us off this shore, yes."

Brevys shook the metal bowl. A cord, much like the one that had unfurled from the exploding scroll, appeared. "Light that with your flint, please. I'm a hand short."

Eight seconds later, we were skimming over the surface of the quicksilver, propelled by a comet of fire. Brevys held the bowl against his chest. He had attached it by a hook to the back of the boat, but it had pushed through the canvas, slammed him into me and me into the front of the boat. The front of the boat, amazingly, had held, and the explosion of light, caught by the bowl, pushed us at ludicrous speed over the lake and onto the Island.

The bowl sizzled sound. The light flickered and died. Brevys slumped away from me, over the bowl.

"Brevys," I said, when I was able to breathe. "Brevys, get up."

The boat was on fire. I dragged Brevys clear and rolled him in the sand to put out the fire licking his cloak. He did nothing to help, or resist, or make any move at all.

"Brevys?" I said, "Brevys!" I pounded his chest.

He came to life gasping. The bowl was still in his hands. He cast it aside as a man might a viper. "Why am I covered in sand?" he said. "Never mind. Did we make it?"

"We're on the Island."

He leapt to his feet. "Yes!" The sight of the burning boat provoked another leap, this one in the craft's direction. I would have gone to help, but found I was completely exhausted.

I flopped in the sand. As Brevys beat at the flames with his cloak, I looked for our pursuers. The dragons, both winged and wingless, had broken off the chase. They were drifting and slithering away, just as if Brevys and I had disappeared from the earth. None of the swimming dragons paid us any heed.

"We made it," Brevys said again. He had stripped the boat's canvas, smothered it in sand, and left the frame to the fire. I would find later that the canvas served a purpose in our exit, but at that moment I was too tired to care. My last sight before I shut my eyes was of Brevys walking determinedly to the ruins.

His call woke me from a nap. I rose, stumbled through the shadow of the tree and past the tree itself, stopping only once to admire a golden squirrel. I found Brevys sitting in the grass.

The ruins were at his back. To his left was a hole, one of many he had dug as I slumbered. A leather pouch sat in his lap. There was no sand on the pouch, from which I deduced he had drawn the object from a container in the hole. I was about to ask what he had found when Brevys looked up.

He had tears in his eyes. In all the months we had traveled together, I had never seen Brevys cry. Even when we sped down the mountain, his eyes had barely glistened. Now, he wept openly.

"She's alive, Oleander," he said. He looked younger when he said it, as though it was years, not tears, that slipped down his cheeks to puddle in his beard.

"Who is?"

He showed me two objects. The first was a coin with a sigil stamped on the face. Brevys had drawn the same sigil on the night he told me of his family's villa in Gaul. It had been carved over the main gate. The second object was a cord of plaited gold and purple fabric, such as a lady of high station might twist in her hair.

Brevys smiled. "Oleander, would you like to go on an adventure?"