Chapter 2: Cunning, Powerful, Greedy, and Beautiful

Much work had gone into constructing Lindír a newer and greater cage. The ceiling was a high, ribbed vault, held aloft by a pair of crossed archways that spanned easily two dozen arms from one wall to the other. It was a miracle that it had not bankrupted all of Hvalheim just to build such a thing, a cathedral devoted entirely to Lindír’s containment. It was no mere cell; but neither was it a home.

And Lindír was more than tired of counting stone bricks. From the minute he awoke from the stupor which he had been placed in by his own father’s blow, Lindír engaged in a war against all. The door of the chamber, a huge slab of solid bronze, rattled and rang out under a rain of terrible strikes, Lindír attacking it with every ounce of his furious strength. But the door was thick and expertly smithed from a good alloy, and it did not give.

Though he collapsed at the end of that first day with blunted claws and exhausted muscles, Lindír’s rage did not end. When a maid arrived that next morning to give him food, Lindír feigned exhaustion until she had set foot inside the chamber. Then he lunged, jaws wide, tearing cloth and flesh and shattering bone as he ripped into her. It was only by some miracle that she escaped, dragged back through the door by her fellows. Lindír rushed forward, seeking freedom on the far side of the door, but it was ingeniously constructed. The bronze was so heavy that it could only be opened by means of a winch lifting it into a slot in the ceiling; but it could be closed in an instant merely by releasing the winch, causing it to slam down with enough force that Lindír’s head would have been crushed into a paste had it landed on him.

Frenzied and with the taste of blood on his tongue, Lindír roared and thrashed against the door. “Let me out!” he screamed. “Let me out!” The sound of his shouts echoed across the chamber until dust shook from the ceiling, and not even the bronze door could block his words.

For many days this continued. Again and again someone would have to come to feed Lindír; and each time he was more furious than the last, gnawing at the very dirt beneath the door if it meant coming closer to tearing his captors asunder. The visits to Lindír’s cell began to come further and further apart, as the staff’s terror of him grew. Lindír soon realized that they intended to starve him.

He went without food for some days. Were it not for the small stream which had been redirected through his chamber from the castle well, death would have been certain. Starvation enervated Lindír, made him sluggish, but it equally sharpened his resolve and hardened his anger. His eyes grew luminous with red rage. And then, finally, came the familiar clank-clank-clank of the winch being turned.

Lindír hid by the wall, hoping to catch whoever entered his chamber by surprise. But the door did not open, merely lifting, barely the breadth of a man’s hand by way of a gap. After several moments, a deep and very familiar voice resonated through the gap.

“Lindír? I know you’re in there now, beast,” said his father.

“Let me out,” Lindír growled. “Let me out right now!”

“You know I can’t do that. The castellan’s a cripple, now. And the maids you savaged…”

Lindír licked at his teeth. “They are dead?”

Another voice spoke, this one dry and rasping. “Two of them. One of bleeding, another of infection.”

A small spark of pity arose in Lindír’s heart. It burned him, and he rumbled softly. But no amount of pity could dissuade him. “If you had let me free, mother, they would have lived.”

“By the gods, my son, have you no sense?” Heimir said, his voice like the blasting of a pipe organ. “If you persist in biting the hand which feeds you, then you will starve!”

“Then let me starve, or else let me go!”

Lindír’s rage boiled over, and he hurled himself with full force against the bronze door. His wing bruised and the metal rang out like a church bell, but did not bend or give. 

“If I am as cursed as you claim, then kill me! I refuse this cell, but perhaps it could make a decent mausoleum.”

Guthrún’s voice, a harsh whisper, swiftly cut through Lindír’s roars. “Foolish child. You will not die.”

It was, on its face, an absurd statement. Lindír would surely starve to death if left alone. And yet, the way she said it, the absolute certainty, it chilled him to the bone. He knew that Guthrún spoke the truth, although he had no idea how it could be.

“Then I will fight. I don’t care how many have to die. Someday I’ll be strong enough to rip through that door and escape.”

Heimir sighed. “There must be some other way. A bargain, perhaps?”

A ragged, horrible laugh forced its way up Lindír’s throat. “A bargain? What bargain? If I’m good for another twelve years you’ll let me out, you promise? You’re liars, the both of you.”

“I’ve spoken to the castellan,” Heimir said. “And to your brother. And your mother, when she was able. We cannot let you beyond the walls of the Red Citadel, but perhaps the castle itself would be enough for you?”

Even the castle itself had appeared almost miraculous to Lindír, during his brief foray into the light. Compared to the cell, it might as well have been the whole world. There were people out in the rest of the castle, and grass and trees and wind, and if one simply looked up, one could see the sun and the moon. It had even been mentioned, once, that the Red Citadel did not lay far from the sea.

“You’ll let me out, if I promise not to leave the castle?”

“No, we cannot trust your promises. You would be guarded, and there would be many times when you would have to stay down here. You would have to wear chains and a muzzle, as well, for safety.”

Even to a youth as lacking in experience as Lindír, it seemed a poor substitute for freedom. He should have laughed at it, refused it, rained terror and insults upon his father for the insult of believing that such a fool’s bargain would sate him. 

But Lindír hurt. His claws were dull and his wing was sore from charging the door, and his stomach screamed out for food, any food at all. As with any tantruming child, he had grown weary of lashing out, and the siren song of parental affection called out to him once more. Perhaps it would not be so terrible. And, after all, he was dangerous, that much he had proven a dozen times over by that point. Lindír’s belly dropped to the ground, and he slowly pulled his limbs under himself.

“Fine. Bring the chains, bring the muzzle, bring knights and maids too. I want to die.”

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The knights came for him two days later, just as he had begun to doubt that his parents would ever uphold their end of the bargain. A score of sturdy men descended into the pit, and each took hold of a length of chain, and one stepped forward to secure a muzzle around Lindír’s jaws. Once they were certain it was done, and done well, the bronze door was opened once again, and he was brought out onto the surface.

Lindír’s first proper walk around the Red Citadel was a tense, frightful affair. The knights all looked ready to leap for their weapons at any moment, and kept a tight hand on Lindír, yanking him to the side should he make so much as a false step. There was no question as to the route which he would take, and he was not allowed to slow or stop, except once, exactly halfway through the loop. All aside from those who had been tasked to accompany him rapidly vacated every room which he passed through, leaving the whole of the castle empty and loveless.

And so was the case for the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth journey beyond the bounds of the cell. The knights came every so often, at a seemingly random interval. Sometimes few enough days would pass between visits that Lindír could count them on one hand, but at other times nearly a fortnight passed. Over many an excursion, however, the mood began to lighten. Lindír did not attempt escape, too morose was he, and as the knights and all of the other staff of the castle came to realize this fact, they grew less frightened.

First, Lindír was allowed greater freedom. The knights allowed him to tarry or hurry as he so wished, and so long as his wanderings kept him within the same room or course as had been prearranged, allowed him to explore various corners of the rooms. Eventually, the chains went slack, and Lindír’s escort treated him with much the same bored inattention as one might a leashed lapdog.

The people, as well, came to view him with some curiosity. Those who had lived and worked within the Red Citadel for many years, but whose duties did not take them to Lindír’s cell, had come to view him as a sort of local myth. They appeared first in doorways, grinning manically at the fairy tale being led sedately through the halls. Then, once his presence became mundane, they would sometimes approach him, to engage in casual conversation with the knights, or to reach out and brush the heels of their palms against his scaly hide. Eventually, he became just another part of castle life, primarily ignored, navigated around, and joked about. When Lindír spoke, the usual response was shock and confusion.

There were even times, not always, but increasingly common as the years passed, when Lindír was allowed to set his own schedule. If he had not been let out in too long, he would slap his tail against the bronze door and demand to be let out, and they would usually come for him within a day. Other times, he would discover some wing of the castle which he had never before entered, or remember a specific place in the castle which had brought him joy to exist within, and so ask that the course of the excursion be set in that direction.

The most common of such places was the Red Citadel’s chapel. It, like the rest of the castle, was enormous and magnificent in its construction, with a high arch that dwarfed even Lindír’s cell, supported by flying buttresses on either side. It stuck out of one of the walls, dominating the second of the Red Citadel’s three wards, and could not be missed.

The chapel was lined with altars and nooks devoted to all of the gods, and was almost never empty, for Hvalheim was a pious kingdom, and there were countless small opportunities, little comings and goings of life, which the people who dwelt in the castle might consider an opportunity for prayer. The one exception was when Lindír was allowed to visit. Then the chapel would be cleared out, priests and laity alike, so that their prayer would not be disturbed by the presence of the dragon.

Lindír was not there for prayer. He, in fact, knew little of the gods. It had been told to him, at a young age, that the gods of humanity were of and for humanity, as the dragons had existed before the gods, and had no connection to them nor need of them. But he went anyway, and often, to gaze upon one enormous window of stained glass which lay at the very back of the chapel.

It was undivided, bearing only a single image, formed from great panes of glass. In it were two figures. One was a man, or perhaps a god, all in white, with long, flowing hair and a sword in his hand, his face an open-mouthed shout of challenge. But before him was a much greater figure, one so large and so detailed that it took up more than half of the window. It was a dragon, blue of scale and broad of wing, claws outspread for battle, red and orange flames bursting from its mouth. The dragon’s tail twisted around the whole of the image, as though preparing to crush the man before it, and its yellow eyes captured the evening sun in such a way as to become alight with fury.

When Lindír first saw this image, he was thirteen years of age. It transfixed him. He sat down before it, eyes wide and jaw slack, utterly hypnotized by the grandiose beauty of the beast. After some minutes, he turned to one of the knights and asked what this image was, what it represented, who were the characters which it contained. The knights did not know, but Lindír was insistent, saying he would starve and die if he did not learn more of this window. And so, not wanting to have to deal with the temper of a young dragon, the knights relented, and summoned the priest, who was one of the few who could read and know the true story.

His name was Father Vigi, and he was a man of great age, bald and stooped, glad in loose brown robes. Age had not hardened him, as it had the castellan; rather, he had the wrinkled appearance of a grandfather or an uncle, and although there was consternation in his countenance as he approached Lindír, he did not quaver, nor did his voice show anything but kind sympathy.

“This window,” Lindír said. “Who does it depict?”

Vigi nodded, but was silent, his jaw working back and forth as he thought. “That is Ólor. The god of war and strength. He smites Sivnis, the great dragoness, as part of the marriage-challenge of Ídona, goddess of—”

“Sivnis. Tell me more about her.”

Vigi blinked for a moment. “Sivnis, she was a… a blight upon the kingdom of Hundrland, set upon them by their greed and sinfulness. The king of that country, Ulvö, he had—”

Lindír slapped his tail harshly against the ground. “I don’t care about kings. Tell me about Sivnis.”

Vigi again halted, this time for many more seconds, blinking ferociously and tapping his hand against his robe in frustration. He was old, very old, and his memory had begun to fail him, and yet the answer did eventually come.

“There are only a couple of passages which speak of Sivnis herself. They say that she was…a terror to behold. She was a dragon of the third age, but it is said that many of the dragons of the first age, even, would have quailed before her, so vast and mighty was she. She burned many castles and cities of the giants to cinders, and no army could stop her.”

“And why did she do that?” Lindír said, now gazing once more upon the stained glass window.

Father Vigi blinked and frowned. “Because she desired to. She lusted for their gold, for the beauty of princes, for the bounty of their flocks. She was intelligent, as well, I think. She must have been, to nearly deceive the god of war as she did. Cunning, at the very least.”

“Cunning, greedy, powerful. What else?”

“I… I do not know. The book does not speak of her more than that. She fell before Ólor’s blade, and that was that. Sivnis was a great foe, but little more.”

“I see,” Lindír said, and returned his attention fully to the stained-glass window.

Father Vigi was escorted from the chapel, and Lindír was as well, not too long after. He would often return, merely in order to gaze upon the image of Sivnis, the mighty dragoness, and wonder what she must have been like in life. A flame had been lit within him, the flame of an idea. When he was grown, he would be a true dragon, as Sivnis had been, cunning, powerful, greedy–and beautiful.

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