Chapter 5 – The Hidden Isle
The morning was bright and cheerful, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said of Johnson Farthing. He woke with a start following the invasion of a nightmarish dream where he was fifty feet down Truk’s well and still digging, but with only a spoon. Just as he thought he might actually be about to hit water, a huge claw had reached down, grabbed him and thrown him into the dumps in a cloud of red dust, shouting to him that he should have been looking after his sister. It was just before dawn, and both the dragon and the magician were asleep. His head was buzzing with his worries about his sister far too much for him to settle, so he climbed out of his bedding into the pale, colourless, pre-dawn light and took a swig from the water that Weasel had collected the day before. It was slightly sweet, the flavour tainted by the flower from which Weasel had told him he had collected it. On a thought, he grabbed an empty, hide water bag and headed off to find some more water.
“Make sure you take it from the plants with the blue flowers.” The magician’s voice was muffled by his bedding. “The green ones make it bitter, though safe enough.”
“Thanks,” Farthing said, and wandered up the hill.
He was grateful for the few moments on his own. He was beginning to feel dwarfed by the combined knowledge of the long-lived dragon and magician, and felt like a child who could not say anything right. Geezen had taken him aside before they had left to reassure him that this was primarily a quest to find his sister; the prelate’s daughter was important, but not at the expense of Rusty, and he should not be afraid to take charge. Farthing wasn’t sure he knew how to be in charge. It was like he was still learning how to find his sister rather than getting on with doing it.
They had reached this small island at dusk the night before, and having little light and not much fuel to light a fire, had all fallen asleep early. He had been surprised how tired he was, but Weasel had reminded him that they had spent much of the day in the thin air, high above the clouds, and his body was not enthusiastic about this way of life. The dragon might have been unaffected by the altitude, but the flying had worn her out, and she was the first asleep.
This island had a very small hill unlike the previous, larger island that had boasted a couple, once he had looked around, and it was easier to appreciate how these islands grew and developed, thickening in the middle over hundreds of years, becoming larger and larger until they eventually broke up and sank to the ocean floor. It was a bright and calm day, and within a boundary of trees near the top of the hill, it was sheltered from at least some of what being exposed to the open ocean could bring. And it was surprisingly warm. This was an untamed land, this small floating island, and there were no natural paths to follow. Farthing had seen none of the rabbits that were on the bigger island, though they had stuck to their mounds and ridges and the more open, grassy banks, playing catch-me-if-you-can with some of the passing seabirds. Here on this young island, within this little sparse and corrupted wood, ferns and large-leafed flowering shrubs dominated, and Farthing had to wade through a knee-high sea of purples, oranges and blues, the sunlight dancing across huge variegated leaves with every hue of green from dark and navy to pale-green and sand yellow.
It was easier to find water than he thought it would be. Around the base of some larger, older elms, still shockingly shrunken in comparison to their landlocked cousins, grew fleshy plants with leaves wrapped tightly to create a natural jug, topped off by a soft cap of flowers of red, green and blue. It was a simple matter to tip these over and pour the water into the skin bag. He strained off the odd insect that was taking a surprise bath in the jugs with his fingers, but the water was pure, clean, and sweet-smelling. At least he and Weasel were fed and their thirsts quenched without the trials of fishing; it was something to be grateful for. A shadow flickered across him and he looked up to see the dragon alighting in the foliage, the magician sat cross-legged on her wide back. She chucked another water bag at Farthing.
“Fill that one too, lad,” the dragon said in a warm voice. “It is too easy for you humans to die of thirst in this salty sea. We dragons are not fussy weaklings like you.” Farthing stoppered the first bag and filled the second and then, with a thought, picked up some broken branches. Walking over to the dragon he threw the two bags and the wood up to the magician who caught and stowed them. Farthing looked into the huge eyes of the beautiful draig.
“I haven’t thanked you. I am sorry.” He nodded formally to the dragon, hoping this was the right thing to do.
She blinked her large eyelids slowly in acknowledgment of his words. “Despite my grumbling, this journey is important, Johnson Farthing. It is my pleasure to help you and my friend Geezen. Now, let us fly east.”
As the dragon started her long climb to the higher altitudes, staying over the island to take advantage of the warm currents of air, Farthing raised his voice to ask the magician why it seemed so warm on this small world in an unfriendly sea.
“It is a calm day, which helps,” Weasel pointed out. “But this is not the only reason. The island is basically a giant, floating compost heap kept afloat by the nature of the weed from which it springs and the gases trapped in the deeper parts of the island. Those gases are the product of rotting vegetation and that also produces heat. The island is warmed from within. It is enough heat to give Fren-Eirol a lift that she would otherwise find a struggle out in the open sea with us on her back. On the rare occasions that dragons have to alight on a small, young island, they have to work a lot harder to get height. We will need to avoid very small islands with the added weight that we add, just in case our dear dragon friend here starts deciding which of us she can do without!”
It seemed a small issue for the moment and Farthing tried to relax and enjoy the climb up into the faint wisps of clouds. He looked back at the magician, envious of the ease with which he sat cross-legged on the dragon. The cameo was a long way from the fall-down-drunk fool whose bar tab needed paying. Farthing shook his head and tried to move his legs into an easier position.
“Find a comfortable place, but mind you sit even on my back, boy,” the dragon yelled over her shoulder as she climbed in circles. “If you unbalance me while I am trying to fly, I will be tempted to give you a ducking!” Farthing quickly adjusted himself and apologised, though the growing wind whipped his words away. He again looked back at Weasel. It was true, the little man, though sat so casually, was dead centre, just back from where the mighty wings joined the dragon’s spine, the huge bunches of muscles flexing and pulling the vast, shimmering, gossamer-skinned wings. Dragons, these dragons and their red cousins, were large beasts standing four times the height of a horse and four times as long not including their thin tails. But they flew, and so had a delicacy to their build that carried little unnecessary weight.
Draig Morglas resembled birds more than did red dragons, the Draig Mynyth Coh, but they were hexapods with their 3 sets of limbs, whereas birds had just four limbs like humans. Setting aside their delicate forearms, these dragons had the similar poise and grace of the big hunting birds, the hawks and the eagles. Red mountain dragons were proportioned differently. Their front limbs were stronger and larger, though they could use their clawed hands with surprising dexterity, and even made jewellery from polished stones and metal. They were longer in the body with a much shorter neck and had a heavier look to them. The biggest were also huge, twice the length of Fren-Eirol and much taller when they raised themselves up. They had little to do with the other peoples of this strangely mixed land and ignored the artificial boundaries set by the Prelates or the rulers of Bind. Their hill and mountain villages and their way of life had almost faded into myth and fable, though they were occasionally seen flying past at great height.
The sea dragon reached the limit of her climb and, as she had before, headed into the strong currents of air to push herself even higher. Farthing pulled his warm coat around him and fell into a dreamless
doze.
It was little more than an hour later that he was woken by a long, haunting cry. He opened his eyes, blinking in the harsh sunlight to find the dragon surrounded by a small flock of gigantic birds.
“Scimrafugol,” Weasel shouted out from behind him. Farthing didn’t know the word and had never seen birds so big. The largest seen around Wead-Wodder were some of the hawks flying over the dumps and the larger gulls that liked to raid the fishing trawlers. These were a little like the gulls in design, he supposed, but larger; much larger. Their wings were at least thirty feet from tip to tip. “Sun Birds, they are called sometimes,” Weasel continued, his voice fighting the wind that streamed past them. “They fly so high it is said their wings touch the sun. Of course, that is not true or even possible, but they fly as high as the dragons.”
“They can fly higher,” Fren-Eirol called over her shoulder. “I sometimes see them far above me navigating the most powerful winds.” Weasel bowed in acknowledgement of her correction though she could not see him.
“Why are they flying with us?” asked Farthing.
“I don’t know,” the dragon called back. “It is rare they flock like this though it is known. It is thought that they sometimes act as guides. Traders see it as good luck to follow them, but I see no reason why they would be with us now.”
Farthing was feeling a little light-headed with the thin air, but it was easier than he thought it would be. He concentrated on breathing softly and deeply as Weasel had taught him the night before. “The air is thin where we are flying, but it is enough for us as long as we do not do anything,” the magician had said. “Your body will naturally want to gasp for air, but if you teach yourself to take long and deep breaths, you will get plenty of what you need and your body will not crave so much.”
The morning felt later than it really was because of their altitude, but what warmth the sun offered was whipped away by the strong, cold, high winds. Down below, the sea glistened, but looking towards the east where they were heading, Farthing could see a wall of clouds banked right across the ocean. He touched the dragon’s neck and shouted out the word, “Storm.”
“I see it, boy, and it is not welcome!” The dragon sounded concerned. “It is many leagues off yet, perhaps a couple of hours flying, but those clouds will be right below us when we need to be looking for an island.” The dragon pushed at the wind. “It is getting a lot gustier. I can’t fly high enough to avoid it.” Weasel tapped Farthing on the shoulder and pointed to the birds. They were flying slightly higher than the dragon, a little out of her view, and were slowly turning slightly to the north.
“The birds are turning,” Farthing called to the dragon. She looked to see for herself.
“Follow them, Fren-Eirol,” called Weasel over Farthing’s shoulder. “Perhaps they are our guide.”
“Or maybe they are just going to fly on for days!” she called back irritably. “They can fly for many, many days without stopping.” As if they understood, a couple of the birds called out in their long, howling cry. “Alright, Scimrafugol,” the dragon said with a sigh. “Let us see where you take me.” She gently banked to join the bird’s new course.
The birds led them on for the next two hours through the battering winds with a steady, but achingly slow, rhythmical beat that Farthing found almost hypnotic. Like the dragon, all the power was in the shoulders, but whereas the dragon’s wings were deep as well as long, almost sail-like, the bird’s wings were narrow and straight as if they were carrying a long plank of thin wood across their shoulders. There was no effort at all to their flight and Farthing felt he had just the inkling of understanding of how they could keep up their flight for days at a time, travelling over distances he could hardly imagine and over lands he was sure he had never heard of. The storm moved beneath them ahead of Fren-Eirol’s estimate, and she fought against the swirling, unpredictable winds.
“The cloud bank goes right down to the water,” she shouted back. “This bloody wind is wearing me out.” The birds had lost a little height and the dragon had followed them down. Within seconds, they were skimming the top of the clouds.
“I hope they know where they are bleeding well going,” Weasel commented. “They are headed somewhere to land or we would still be up there!” He pointed above his head to the high skies, still bright in contrast to this grey world they were venturing into.
“If they go into the cloud, how will we follow them?” Farthing called out, but as if in answer, the birds started their long howling once again. First the lead bird and then the following birds, each at a slightly different pitch. Suddenly they dived into the clouds. In shock, the dragon almost stood on her tail, the two men grabbing hold to stop from falling. Then, with a determined roar, she dived in after the birds following their calls.
Inside the cloud, it was wet and grey and gustier still. Farthing hung on with his knees and arms as the dragon was pulled left and right by the turbulence. “Sorry,” he called out.
“Just hang on tight, boy!” shouted back the dragon. Even the magician had abandoned his relaxed pose and had caught hold of the straps that held the dragon’s huge pack. Strange shapes billowed around them, sometimes like faces, sometimes like mountains, sometimes like crashing waves. The cloud became thicker and then thinner and Farthing could see the occasional shapes of the birds, flying much harder and faster than before, their cries carrying them on through the clouds.
“Are we getting lower?” he shouted out. “I cannot tell!”
“Yes, boy, but I can see little more than you. I can feel it, though. We must be only a few hundred feet above the sea.” The dragon’s wings were beating hard through the rain and winds. Farthing could now understand how hard it was for the dragon to fly with two men on her back plus all their things. At high altitude, in the rivers of wind that snaked across the world, the weight caused fewer problems. But this flying through the storm with no sign of land in sight, was punishing the dragon and he could hear it in her breathing, feel it through her body.
“I can hear waves!” Weasel shouted out. “Below us, no in front of us.”
“How can it be in front?” called back Farthing.
“Eirol, cliffs!” Weasel shouted out the warning as massive cliffs pushed their way out of the clouds. The dragon did not attempt to fly up but just turned hard to the right to slow her flight, then beat her wings harder still to lift them above the waves that were crashing onto rocks below. Above them, the birds shrieked out their cries, and rose up the face of the cliff as if by magic.
“Updraughts!” the dragon swore at herself. “There are updraughts at the cliff face.” She turned back to the cliff and billowed out her huge, shimmering wings. The wind caught under them and lifted them at speed. Suddenly they were above the cliff and looking over a wide, desolate, rain and wind-ravaged land. Farthing had never seen such a place.
“Taken?” he asked.
“Taken is leagues away, Farthing,” Weasel replied. “This is different. This shouldn’t exist.”
“What do you mean, shouldn’t exist?”
“He means it’s a myth,” the dragon called back. “I am going to land there.” She pointed with an arm to a low mound of boulders ahead of them. “It will offer a little shelter and I am near fainting!” Fren-Eirol turned her head and glided to the rocks, settling heavily behind them out of the worst of the wind.
“Get off!” she commanded, and Farthing and Weasel leapt off her back grabbing their things.
“Let me do this,” Weasel said, and he beckoned to Farthing to help him undo the dragon’s heavy pack and let it fall to the ground. The dragon shook herself free of the straps and leapt back into the air.
“Stay there,” she said needlessly, and shot back up into the mists.
“Where is she going?” Farthing asked, amazed that the exhausted dragon should fly off.
“She needs to check something and shake some of the cramps from her muscles
, I would think,” the magician answered unhelpfully. “Let us get a canvas up and a fire lit. We can use the wood in the large bag.”
The two of them set to work, putting up a shelter for themselves though it would not be anywhere near big enough for the dragon. The fire was alight when the dragon returned and landed heavily by the tent. She walked up to them with a tired and worried look on her face.
“Well?” asked Weasel, with a little impatience.
“Tir Cuuth,” answered the dragon.
“What the heck is that?” asked Farthing, utterly confused at what was going on. The magician simply huffed and banged through their belongings getting some food together.
“Tir Cuuth,” answered Fren-Eirol. “The hidden land. It doesn’t exist.” She sat down hard and, for want of a better description, pouted.
“Are you sure?” the magician asked, munching through the last of the cooked rabbit.
“It is almost circular, has cliffs nearly a thousand feet high the entire way around and has a bloody great big ruined castle in the middle. Where the hell else could it be?”
“But it is just a silly story that daddy magician tells kiddy magicians to scare them asleep at night.”
“Well, the story is beneath your feet now, Weasel. I don’t know of any other island that looks like it’s moving.”
“What about the ones we landed on before?” asked Farthing.
“They don’t have huge, rocky cliffs!” Fren-Eirol snapped. She looked into Farthing’s eyes, then sighed. The young man was scared. “We are not going further today,” she said more softly. “We will stay here for an hour so I can get my breath back and then we will fly up to the castle. The winds are too strong for me to get any height, so we are stuck here till they die down.” She turned away from them, curled up by the rocks and fell asleep.
“She has to be wrong, we can’t be at Tir Cuuth,” muttered Weasel as he washed the dishes out under the water draining off the canvas and stowed them back in the packs. Farthing helped collect the rest of their belongings together, made sure they were dry and then sat by the fire to get a little warmth. The grey wind tugged at his shoulders. This was a miserable place.
The trip up to the castle took but a few minutes, but it was a struggle against the wind, carrying the soaked canvas. The towering fortifications were a black granite ruin, crumbled and worn by wind and rain, but the keep had part of a roof over the remnants of the great hall and they were able to find a clear area within that was big enough to shelter even Fren-Eirol. They stretched the big canvas between the walls so it could dry out and trap the heat from their small fire. Farthing explored through what was left of the lower rooms of the keep and recovered a fair amount of ancient, weathered wood, dry enough to burn, just about, though it smoked a lot, making the magician cough.
“You couldn’t have found anything drier?” He was still questioning the reality of this strange island.
Farthing pointed meaningfully out at the rain, streaming down the broken outer walls of the keep in small waterfalls from old buttresses and beams. “Here? You think it is possible to find something dry here?”
Weasel just coughed and wrapped himself up in his blanket.
“The boy has a point,” commented Fren-Eirol. She had been standing with her wings spread out to dry off and now had wrapped them tightly around herself. “If this myth is only half true, then clear skies are a rarity here. We may have a serious problem leaving until the worst of this storm passes.”
“What are you saying?” Farthing was taken aback by her words.
“I am saying that I can barely fly around this island at ground level in this rain and wind. On my own, I would only just fight my way above the clouds, but carrying both of you and all our kit would be impossible for the moment.”
“Could there be boats?” Farthing sounded worried.
“You saw the cliff when we arrived,” the dragon pointed out. “That encircles the entire island; I saw nothing that reached down to sea level. This is the most treacherous region of the Prelates Sea where several currents meet; boats avoid it completely. So do sensible dragons.”
“But there must be something!” Farthing thought this all sounded ridiculous. “If nothing else, someone managed to build a sodding castle here!” He pointed at the ancient ruins around them.
“Nearly two thousand years ago, boy!” the dragon snapped at him.
“The story, the myth, is very old,” Weasel said. He rubbed his hands together over the fire thoughtfully and closed his eyes. “It tells the story of a duke named Hathersage whose task was to guard the coastal lands of the kingdom of Seckoness for his King, King Seckon. Hathersage was not the noble his father had been. He had inherited the title when he was a young boy after his elder brother had died in a battle with a giant calliston. He had been a sickly child and he was a sickly and cowardly duke.
“As he looked out to sea each day, across the distant waves and sea mists, he became more and more frightened of what lay beyond his knowledge. So, he ordered a fortress and keep to be raised on a peninsula bordered by thousand foot cliffs. They built the castle from black granite and for a while the cowardly duke felt a little safer. But it did not last, for he began to be afraid of what lay behind him, inland, and he pulled his soldiers from their coastal duties of protecting the kingdom and warning the king of invasion so that they should guard the peninsula itself.
“And yet, he became more afraid. He felt that his very habitat on the peninsula, the excellent fortress that could be seen by any enemy for many leagues, would be his undoing, and so he had huge fires built, stripping the land of wood, and atop of these, he boiled vast cauldrons of water, engulfing the peninsula in a permanent mist. And finally, so afeard was he, that he had his engineers destroy the causeway between the peninsula and the mainland, effectively making it an island.
“So protective of his own small world had he become, that he did not know that an enemy had invaded the kingdom unnoticed and, no warning having been sent to the king, a savage and bloody war was now being waged at the very gates of the king’s citadel. But in his own, self-imposed isolation, the cowardly duke knew nothing of what his lack of vigilance and the abandonment of his duty had unleashed upon the kingdom and it did not touch him for he remained hidden behind his mists.
“The king finally beat back the invader, but at a cost in both the lives of his people and even his close kin and he vented his fury upon the duke and his island. He ordered his magicians to cast loose the peninsula from the kingdom and set it to drift amongst the waves, never to touch land again. And so they did as they were bidden, and for years the island drifted across the seas, hidden by its own mists until every person who lived on the barren land had died of starvation or disease. For in his cowardice and fear that an invader might climb to his keep, the Duke had ordered that any paths down the cliff to the sea be destroyed. Once the island was set adrift, he and his people were trapped. And when all had died, only the Duke was left, howling a long, lonely cry from his deserted battlements.”
The story ended and the sound of the rain reasserted itself.
“You enjoyed that,” Fren-Eirol said, with little humour.
“I enjoy a tale, even a myth. Though I do not enjoy the idea that at least in part it appears to have been true!” Weasel pulled his blanket tighter around him and managed to look even more miserable. Farthing sat in silent thought.
“Weasel,” he asked after a moment or two. “The end of the story, where he cries from the battlement, is that the real story? I mean, you didn’t just add it for fun?”
The dragon answered for the magician. “No, that is how I have heard it told. Indeed, the story tellers always punctuate it by making the sound. It is part of the telling.” From somewhere above, one of the huge Scimrafugol cried out its long, haunting, melancholy cry to its kin.
“What, a bit like that?” Farthing asked.
Weasel looked up and nodded. “Very much like that,” the magician agreed. Farthing stood up, threw off his blanket and put on a thin oilskin from his bag.
“Well, in which case, even if much of the story is some made up tale, that last bit is true.” He pointed up to the silhouette of the bird, perched high on the broken battlements, keening to its fellows. “And that means someone made it off the island. I am going to look around.” He walked out into the rain. Weasel looked at the dragon, blinking in surprise.
“Geezen warned me he was a bright one,” Fren-Eirol said.
The barren land of the tale was true enough, Farthing conceded as he pulled his waterproof hat down tightly. The grass was matted and coarse, unfit for much other than a goat, and there was little else here. The odd fern hung on bravely to whatever it could, the occasional, pathetic gorse living a small, undistinguished life behind a rock, or a little stray seedling dropped by a bird, doomed to failure in this sunless, rain swept place. The mist was still thick, but it was thinner than before and he began to get a sense of the shape and size of his much-reduced world. The island was probably a quarter of a league across, maybe less. He couldn’t see clearly, but he felt that it was more tear shaped than round with the sharp end much higher than the rest. In fact, it was strange the castle was not built on the highest point, but then if the story was true, the duke would perhaps have picked the furthest point from the edges all round, and that would be the middle.
Farthing set off to the lower end of the island where they had arrived the day before. The wind buffeted at his back, pushing him along, and he would need to be careful closer to the cliff edge. He made his way over the rugged terrain, picking his way around the ruined foundations of small dwellings just a few stones high. There were a few low ridges of rock like the one they had sheltered behind, the rock not jagged as you would expect, but smooth and rounded, eroded by the ever-present winds. Where they had sheltered was a small horseshoe of rocks, and now the mist had lifted a little he realised how peculiar it looked. In fact, it seemed it was only partly natural rock and at some point, there had been a round building here, something large. A tower perhaps? It would fit in with the story of the cowardly duke.
Carefully, he made his way to the cliff edge, testing the ground to see if it was safe. The grass was tufted and worn and the edge broken and earthy. He lay down and peeked over. The updraughts nearly blew his hat clean off his head and he grabbed it and tied the hat strings tightly beneath his chin; dignity would have to wait for a calmer day. Here at least, it was as the dragon described. The cliff walls plummeted straight down hundreds of feet to the broken rocks below, but they were only a thin skirt that vanished beneath the waves in a most curious way. “No beach,” Farthing said to himself. Normally, even at the base of the steepest cliff, there would be at least the hint of a beach; pebbly and inhospitable perhaps, but it would be there. And there would be tide markings or green weed along the rocks or the cliff. Here there was nothing. It was all clean, washed by the waves, and the sea did not crash as if dragged up over pebbles, but rather sloshed and battered against the cliff wall like water will against the side of a large boat. “It really does look like it’s afloat,” Farthing said in amazement.
He made his way around the island, checking every now and then for signs of a way down, but it was as inaccessible as Fren-Eirol had said. And yet, he was certain someone had managed to escape. How else did the end of the story so resemble the forlorn calls of the huge Scimrafugol? As he worked his way around towards the sharp end of the tear-shaped island, the land rose higher above the sea and the wind blew more strongly. The shape of the island reminded him of the fishing boats that pushed out from the coast of Redust. They trawled their nets into the waves and so had higher prows than sterns; the low sterns for pulling in the nets, the high prows so they were not overwhelmed by the waves. The odd shadow of the huge birds passed over him. They seemed to ignore much of the island and were concentrated up near the sharpest point. Near their nesting ground, he found the rocks were broken, jagged and steeper, and he scrambled up to the very tip. Here, he was surrounded by birds. To his surprise, they were not worried by his presence, but then these were powerful creatures with their long wings, large hooked beaks the size of his forearm, and strong, sharp talons designed for clinging to unforgiving rocks. Perhaps he was simply not a threat to them. Some vocal commotion was just ahead and Farthing made his way forward carefully and looked over the edge. The wind here was much stronger than on the lower cliffs and it roared and whistled through every nook of the jagged rocks. Farthing hung on tightly.
Looking down, he was disappointed yet not surprised to see there was no path. The cliff here was as unrelenting as the rest of the island, but perhaps another five hundred feet or so higher. Some of the big birds were hovering in the updraughts, just hanging in the air like toys dangled from twine. These may not be anywhere close to the size of a sea dragon, but these birds too flew at high altitudes. How did they manage to leave the island and fight through the mists and winds? Suddenly one of the birds dropped from view. Farthing blinked. Where had it gone? Then he saw another do the same. The Scimrafugol just folded its wings back and shot toward the sea like an arrow. Farthing watched in horrified fascination as the bird plummeted to a certain death, and then in awe when the bird pushed its wings out, turned straight into the fierce wind and was catapulted up into the clouds and was gone. Next to Farthing, a younger, smaller bird, standing on the cliff holding on with its talons gave a little squawk.
“You are a very clever creature, Mr Bird,” Farthing told the Scimrafugol. The bird blinked at him. “But how would a man do that?” He watched again as two more of the birds did the same trick and he laughed, mostly at his own stupidity. “Who said it had to be a human?”
The dragon and the magician were sitting in silence when the young man returned, both looking forlorn in the damp, grey island light, cloaks and wings drawn tight, the damp of the mist dripping off noses and ears. Farthing pulled off the oilskin, grabbed a blanket and moved to the fire, throwing on another of their ample supply of ancient castle wood.
“Well?” the magician asked.
“It is as you said, Fren-Eirol,” Farthing said. “The cliffs are impassable the entire way around.” The two looked more sullen. “But I have a question.” The dragon raised an eyebrow. “You said that you had also heard the tale?”
“Yes,” the dragon replied. “It is a very ancient story in dragon folklore.”
“Could it be older than the tale told by men?” he asked the magician, who seemed better at history, or perhaps more interested.
“It is possible,” Weasel replied. “I have no real way of telling. Tales do pass between all the peoples of dirt, each then claiming them as their own.” Farthing saw the logic there. “Why do you ask?”
“If the tale is based on a true story, and it seems by the very existence of this impossible place that it is at least partially true, then someone had to have survived to tell the story or, at least, the last part of it.” The two nodded. This they had already established. “So, this man had to escape.”
“Yes, you have already made that point,” Weasel said impatiently.
“Except that there is no way a man could leave that I can see,” Farthing pointed out.
“Which blows a castle sized hole in your entire theory then!” Weasel was losing patience.
“So, at which point did we decide it had to be a man, I mean a human?” He looked at the dragon directly.
“Because a dragon could leave at any time,” Fren-Eirol pointed out.
“They could?” Farthing asked. “Could you? In this storm?”
The dragon shook her head. “A smaller dragon might have real difficulties. But then we end up with the same problem. If the storm never let up, a dragon might not be able to leave either and so could not take the tale with them.” Farthing pointed up at the b
ig bird who was still perched above on the castle wall.
“He can. I’ve seen how they do it.” Farthing grabbed a stick and made a clear space in the dirt. He drew out the shape of the island and pointed out where the high cliffs were and explained how the birds were launching themselves into the winds. “Could a dragon do that?” he asked.
Fren-Eirol nodded slowly. “It would be difficult carrying both of you, but yes, it could be done. Dangerous, but possible.”
“Then we have a way off,” Farthing said firmly. “We should try in the morning so we have the day to clear the clouds.” And with that, he pulled his blanket around him and fell asleep by the fire, feeling a little more confident about the days ahead.