Kari smiled at me. “Then in your world you also have an Archimaede, though you call it a Heisenberg?”
“I guess Heisenberg was kind of an Archimaede.” I wondered what it would have been like to have the Archimaede for a teacher. And to grow up in a world out of some fantasy. “You’ve been lucky.”
“Have I?”
Brilliant, Liam. In exchange for those neat things she had given up the sort of life I’d had. And it had never even occurred to me what life might be like for someone like Kari, because I was comfortable and that was cool. “I’m sorry.”
She forced another smile. “Oh, Liam, it is not your fault.”
No, but a while ago I had been planning on ditching her so I could go back to living my happy, self-centered life. “Uh, yeah. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Mom.”
“Thank you, Liam. How about Father? Is Father a good man?”
“He’s, um, yeah.” He tried. I knew that. I didn’t know why Dad and I got mad at each other so much nowadays and got into arguments. “He’s a good person, who tries really hard.”
Kari let out released tension in a sigh. “Oh, that is wonderful! I will try so hard to be a good daughter to Mother and Father. I am an excellent hunter, tracker, and scout, and very good with a sword and bow, and I can weave tapestries, and play the harp, and I can sing as humans do or sing to just about any bird in their tongues, and I speak passable elvish, and can ride all manner of beasts, and read the winds and—”
I held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “And walk between worlds. Kari, I think Mom and Dad are going to like you.”
“Do you? My elvish grammar is weak. I cannot grasp the irregular temporal tenses.”
Irregular temporal tenses? And to think I’d been complaining about learning English grammar. “Kari, I’m absolutely positive that weak elvish grammar won’t bother Mom and Dad at all.”
She sighed again. “I am so relieved to hear that from you, for who knows them better than you?”
“Yeah.” I did know my parents, right? I’d been living with them for…like…forever.
What exactly did Dad do in his job? What did Mom like to do when she wasn’t working? Suddenly, I was really glad that Kari hadn’t pushed for more details about them.
I was still worrying over how little I seemed to know about my own parents when Kari’s expression changed, becoming intent. “Do you smell that?”
“What?” I inhaled slowly. “Burning. Burnt wood?”
“Yes.”
“Somebody has a campfire going?”
“Not a campfire,” she corrected. “These have the smell of old ashes, and in great number.” Kari shaded her eyes to look ahead, then rapidly twittered at the nearest birds. They twittered back as Kari listened carefully. “They say the forest turns dead not far ahead.”
“Dead?”
“I am certain they mean it is burned. Birds do not quite grasp ‘fire,’ you know.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Well, they do not. And they cannot tell me how large an area is burned because none of the birds who enter that dead region come back out again.”
Burned wood. Birds that go in don’t come out. “The well of fire?”
Kari nodded, but she didn’t seem thrilled to know we were getting close to our goal. “I am certain it must be that. But the well of fire holds a guardian, and I fear this burnt-out part of the forest can only mean one thing, Liam.”
I waited, but Kari seemed to feel whatever it was didn’t need to be said. “Okay. I give up. What’s it mean?”
“A dragon, of course.”
Of course. A well of fire, the Archimaede had said. So we would be facing a dragon. Kari’s clothes didn’t seem particularly fire resistant, though the leather ought to hold up okay. I wondered how denim would do. “It could be worse,” I remarked.
Kari glanced at me. “How?”
“This could be the 1970’s. I could be wearing polyester. That stuff melts and sticks when it burns.”
“That is another one of your jests, is it not?”
“In a whistling-past-the-graveyard sort of way, yeah.”
A few hours ago I would have immediately tried to talk Kari into heading back the way we had come. But even though the idea of confronting a real dragon had my stomach knotting up again, I stayed with Kari while she marched onward. Maybe I had gained a little confidence in myself. Maybe I was actually starting to trust my crazy little sister’s ability to handle things. Maybe I was too tired from hiking all over Elsewhere to think straight. Or maybe I just wanted to see a real dragon.
You know what they say about being careful what you wish for.
The path through the forest got quieter and quieter as we walked. It didn’t seem like much wildlife enjoyed living near dragons. Or maybe the dragon had just eaten everything, which wasn’t something I really wanted to think about. Then it was like we crossed a line. On one side, the trees were scorched but living. On the other, we could see nothing but leafless, charred, dead trunks reaching up into the sky.
The trail ran out, rapidly diminishing into a narrow footpath that simply ceased. Apparently, most creatures had enough sense to not keep walking toward a dragon’s lair. We reached the end point and stood there surrounded by the dead forest and a sense that danger was very near. The only things missing to complete the menacing picture were some flying monkeys and a sign saying “I’d Turn Back If I Were You.”
Kari exhaled slowly, then drew her sword. “It will not be much farther ahead, brother.”
“The dragon? How much is not much?”
“Much less than a league, I am certain.”
Which would have helped if I had known what a league was. I knew you could find twenty thousand of them under the sea but that was about it.
Kari raised her sword and used it to point ahead and to the right. “That way seems clearer. It will be easier for you. If you go that way, I will work my way around to the left where the fallen trees are thicker. When you get within sight of the dragon’s lair, stop and wait until I draw off the dragon. That will give you the opportunity to enter its lair and find the object we seek.”
“Whoa.” I had abruptly snapped out of whatever mood had kept me quiet up until now. “Draw off the dragon? You mean you’re going to fight it?”
Kari nodded as if fighting a dragon was the most natural thing in the world for a fourteen-year-old girl. “If necessary. I will try to avoid that, but I can defend myself.”
“Have you ever fought a dragon before?” I demanded.
“Yes, of course! Several times. Well, in a group that is,” Kari admitted. “Not by myself.”
“But you’re going to take that one on. By yourself.”
“Only if I have to. I can handle it, Liam.”
“What if it comes after me?”
Kari bit her lip. “That might be a problem. You don’t have your sword.”
“I don’t have any sword, Kari. Remember? I don’t have any weapon of any kind. How fast are dragons?”
“Very fast. Like the wind. A very fast wind, that is.”
“Then shouldn’t we come up with another plan? How can you draw off a very fast dragon and keep it occupied long enough for me to search its den or lair or whatever and not get caught myself?”
“Liam, we do not have any other choice! An out-right attack on the dragon by just the two of us would be too dangerous. I know I am asking you to take a big risk here, but we need to do this and there is not much time left in the day.”
I looked upward, where the dead, bare trees provided little barrier, to see that the sun had dropped far enough to mean the afternoon had to be well along. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“It will be all right, Liam. Do not worry.”
Yeah. Okay. Don’t worry. Her with her sword fighting a dragon single-handed. Me trying to outrun a very fast dragon. Nothing else apparently alive in this part of the forest, which sort of gave a clue as to how effective either fighting or runn
ing away was when it came to dragons. What’s to worry about?
Kari gave me an encouraging smile, then went slinking off in that silent way she had, her sword ready in one hand. I stood there, watching her disappear among the dead tree trunks, and wished I had a tank. One with a really big gun and really heavy armor plate.
What could I do? Kari had told me herself that I sounded like a herd of trolls when I was trying to sneak through the woods. And not just any herd of trolls. A loud herd of trolls. What chance did I have of sneaking up on a dragon’s lair?
Dragon’s Lair. There had been a really old video game called that, where you tried something, and died, and tried something else, and died, and tried something else…
But if I just stood here, Kari would be facing that thing alone.
And even Kari, who seemed to take a lot of really dangerous things in stride, hadn’t thought she had much chance single-handed against a dragon.
Hi, Mom, I’m home. Where’s Kari? Well, there was this dragon and it really didn’t make sense for both of us to get eaten. Oh, by the way, the universe is going to end any time now because I chickened out on her.
I hadn’t come this far to give up now, or to leave my little sister to deal with a dragon alone. I know it sounds strange, because Kari seemed to be generally death on two legs when it came to fighting, but she was still my little sister, so I felt like I ought to protect her.
I looked along the path that Kari had indicated for me, and began walking as carefully as I could, trying to move in a less loud-herd-of-trolls like way. I kept looking for anything that might work as a weapon, but the only branches left on the ground which weren’t burned to charcoal were way too big to use as a bat or a club, and there weren’t any swords or tanks lying around waiting for me to make use of them.
I barely kept from falling over when my foot slipped on a loose rock. Well, that was something. I bent down and picked up the rock, which was about the size of a softball and felt really comforting in my hand. The next whitish, rounded object that I spotted embedded in the dirt looked way too much like the top of a skull for me to want to dig it out. I finally found another rock, slightly smaller, a little way farther on and then snuck ahead with my weapons in both hands. Big bad Liam, king of the cavemen.
The wind that had been around us since we had left the castle on the sea had finally died, leaving the air in the burnt forest totally still. It didn’t feel like the stillness in the castle had, though. That had been the absolute stillness of life brought to a stop. This was the absolute stillness of death. I’d never realized just how different those two things could feel.
I couldn’t hear anything except the sounds of my own movement. Every crunch and crackle of my steps on the charred ground seemed to reverberate like the thunder of a motorcycle engine. I stopped once, staring around and wondering if I should go back. But then I headed forward again, figuring that if the dragon wanted me I had already given it enough noise to find me.
Without warning, I reached the edge of the dead trees. I found myself on the verge of a slope leading down into a big hollow of bare dirt large enough around to hold an athletic field. I steadied myself against one tree, staring downward. White sticks littered the bottom of the hollow, but it wasn’t until I spotted the skulls among them that I realized that the sticks were bones of animals, people, and probably other things native to Kari’s world. On the opposite side of the hollow, a large cave opening gaped like an irregular mouth, scattered boulders near the entrance resembling loose teeth that had fallen free.
But I didn’t spend much time looking at the cave. Perhaps a third of the way around to my left I saw the dragon. It was crouching behind the edge of the hollow, its head twitching slightly as it watched something among the fallen, burnt trees on the other side. I raised myself a little, trying to spot its prey, and after a moment I caught a flash of movement and knew. Kari.
Maybe she knew the dragon was watching her. Maybe not. She must have made a lot of noise or done something else on purpose to distract the dragon from coming after me. Maybe its dragon brain figured that it should get the quiet one first and then it wouldn’t have trouble finding noisy me. I could see the dragon gathering its feet under itself, rolling its high, bony shoulders like a cat getting ready to pounce.
Now, if I had run into this in a game I would have paused it and done a save game and thought a long time about how to handle it. But here was a real dragon preparing to pounce at any moment. On my sister. No time to ponder alternatives. Never mind Kari’s plan. I wasn’t going to let her face that thing alone while I hid in a cave.
It’s not that I didn’t still think Kari was sort of nuts. But it seems that sometimes there’s a fine line between being nuts and doing the right thing. I hoped I was on the right side of that line.
I tossed my first rock lightly up to judge its weight again, then pitched it as hard as I could at the monster. I switched my other rock to my good hand and did the same thing. Then I yelled as loud as I could. “Kari! Look out!”
I watched my first rock ricochet off the side of the dragon, and the second one hit near its forearm. It swung its head around at my shout, apparently not hurt in the least by my rocks, and glared at me. Instead of leaping after Kari, it twisted its whole body in one sinuous movement and launched itself toward me.
Right about then I realized that I had no idea what to do next. Maybe a little planning wouldn’t have been a bad thing.
I assume you’ve never seen a real dragon. I hadn’t. I’d always thought dragons were kind of cool, because dragons were a lot like dinosaurs and everybody knows dinosaurs are cool. It’s always fun to watch dragons (or dinosaurs) romping around a movie screen or a computer screen, chomping down on anything that moved and generally tearing up the landscape.
At least, it’s fun when you’re not one of the guys in danger of being chomped on.
What’s a real dragon look like? Don’t think cool. Don’t think dinosaur. Think snake. Big, big snake. With legs and wings. And eyes that have that reptile slit and look at you as just one more appetizer before it goes off to eat a bunch of cows or something.
This one was coming for me now, moving really fast. Kari’s comment about dragons being as fast as the wind seemed way too accurate.
It finally occurred to me that I ought to run. But I had taken too long to figure that out. Fortunately, I slipped on the edge of the hollow as I frantically turned to run, and instead went down flat, just in time to escape a claw the size of a bowie knife slashing through the air where I had been.
This is where you came in. I told you we’d get back here eventually. Like I said, I kept sliding and rolling down the slope, right underneath the dragon, and finally pitched up at the bottom of the hollow, dazed and battered, the empty sockets of a bear’s skull staring blankly back at me. Before I could even think about getting up, the dragon had jumped and landed right in front of me. The earth was still shaking from the impact when the dragon hissed at me, reared back a little and spread its jaws.
If you’ve never found yourself lying on the ground with a dragon opening its mouth wide as it prepares to bite off about half of your body, I don’t recommend it. The teeth looked like rows of big knives, and saliva was falling onto the ground next to me and raising little columns of smoke where it landed. If I hadn’t been terrified I would have spent a moment admiring the whole alien-vibe of the scene. But unlike a movie alien, this monster made it all too obvious where the term dragon breath had come from. I thought I was going to choke on the stench.
No way out, Liam. No saved game. I lay there and stared at certain death.
The jaws paused for a moment, preparing to clash shut on me. I heard a wild yell, then a sound like a hammer beating on a truck. The jaws jerked away, and that broke my paralysis. I realized I could move again. I backpedaled a few feet on the ground, trying to get some distance between me and the dragon, and I saw Kari. She was still yelling, and holding the hilt of her sword with both hands as she raine
d furious blows on the dragon’s head. I gradually was able to understand, between the clangs of sword blows falling on dragon armor, some of what Kari was screaming at the dragon: “Leave!” (clang!) “My!” (clang!) “Brother!” (clang!) “Alone!”
The dragon darted its head this way and that, trying to escape Kari, but she bored in, slamming at the dragon’s head and chipping away armored scales until the dragon leaped backward out of her reach long enough to get its balance. It hissed a cloud of noxious breath at Kari, who stood with a very grim face, holding her sword before her with both hands clasped on the hilt.
“Run!” I yelled.
“It will be upon me if I turn!” she shouted back. “We must now defeat it or die!” Kari looked awesome as she stood there, her sword’s point canted toward the dragon, sweat running down her face, breathing heavily.
I stood there, feeling helpless, as the monster leaped at Kari, striking with the speed of a venomous snake. But, with perfect timing, Kari slammed her sword against the dragon’s head, diverting its strike.
Before she could attack again, it struck at her once more. Then again and again, the dragon’s head moving so fast on its long neck that it seemed like a hydra with eight heads. Its body hardly moved at all, forming a stable base for the monster’s attacks. Kari parried every strike, but I could see the sweat coming off her and knew she must be tiring.
If I’d had a sword, too, I could have attacked the dragon while it kept striking at Kari. But as long as I was wishing for things I didn’t have, why not wish for an anti-tank weapon?
I looked down, frantically searching for a weapon, any weapon. I grabbed a substantial-looking bone, but it had deteriorated so much that it cracked into fragments under my fingers.
A sword hilt was partially buried off to one side, but when I pulled on it all that was left of the sword was a thin scrap of rusted metal.
Then I saw a rusty curve of metal and yanked it out of the dirt. A shield. No decoration or anything, just a circle of metal, and not a big one. More like one of those things they call bucklers in plays by that Shakespeare guy. Round and maybe two or three times as big as a Frisbee. It had been out here a while, after whoever had once carried it got turned into dragon chow, but it still felt pleasantly hefty.