Chapter 8: A Story

Lindír was eighteen years of age the first time he set foot within a proper city. It was winter, barely two months after the encounter with the hellira, and though Garganland was a temperate country, it was nonetheless a part of Northland, and thus became blanketed in snow. The fields were barren, the markets empty, the peasant farmers locked indoors as they waited out the starving months.

But, as Ámnistr explained, there was still frivolity to be had. The city of Nederborg was famous for its mid-winter celebration, Koldenfest, and though his journeys with Lindír had caused him to miss the previous two Koldenfests, Ámnistr was determined not to miss a third. Lindír, by this point, had grown used enough to people that the concept of a city did not terrify him. Fear and curiosity sat within him in equal measure as he passed through the gate.

The truth of Ámnistr’s statement became clear almost immediately. For one thing, everyone recognized him. Cries of “The Drum is here! The Drum is here!” followed the pair through the streets like swarming gnats. Many of the folk of Nederborg were unwilling to leave their homes, fearing the cold, but they threw open their windows to wave at him as he went, and held out their children, that they could see the wonder of the giant musician. Lindír got a good deal of attention as well, and dealt with it with his usual gruffness. A gruffness which lessened somewhat when Ámnistr pointed out to the folk that Lindír much appreciated treats.

Lindír soon became very familiar with one type of treat in particular, ice-sweet, made from honey and pale white berries and frozen solid in the snow. The ice- part he loathed; it clicked unpleasantly against his teeth and could have done nothing good to his flame. But the -sweet part made up for it, and as ice-sweet was a Koldenfest tradition, there was supply enough even for a dragon.

A city was much like a town in many ways, and Ámnistr’s role was the same as always, to sing joyous songs and tell funny stories, though there were a few Koldenfest stand-outs that Lindír had never heard him sing before. Lindír did not get half as much a chance to participate as he usually did. Koldenfest was a time of celebration and bringing into the heart of winter the happiness of spring; it was not a time for dragons.

So Nederborg became Lindír’s stomping ground. He explored it from the air, his gaze following the folded convolutions of the streets as they appeared from high above. Padding along the avenues, Lindír saw things he had never seen in a small town, moneylenders and jewelers and enormous workshops of glass-blowers. The churches of Nederborg, and there were more than Lindír could count on his front claws, rivaled the chapel of the Red Citadel in sheer scale and elaborateness of decoration. They were monuments not only to those strange human gods, but to the wealth and accomplishment of the city itself.

And the sheer mass of humankind to be found. The crowds seemed impossible. Pedestrians filled the streets until the wagons—and how many wagons there were, just to transport goods from one part of the city to another—were forced to part them like a ship moving through ice floes. The city was the truest expression of humanity, Lindír realized, humankind’s arrogance and power in its purest form; for even the farm fields had to work with nature.

And as the days went by, Lindír was reminded of his oath, and a seed of fury sprouted within. He hated humans, after all, and all that they built. He was not meant to be some giant’s pet, he was meant to be a ravager, a bringer of devastation, he was meant to be a dragon!

One of the churches, a smaller church in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Nederborg, happened to have a large statue in the courtyard in front of it. It was a stone statue, rough granite, and it was about half again as tall as a man. It depicted Ólor, the god of war, all in his panoply, sword raised as though about to strike, mouth wide in a roar of triumph and challenge. One day Lindír found himself, seemingly by no choice or will of his own, sitting before that statue. He glared at it, his eyes orange and aflame, head lowered. Ólor, the god of war… Sivnis’s murderer. This statue, torn from the rock and cruelly hewn into a new form, was a symbol of the gods of humanity, of their triumph, of what humans thought of those creatures that were not like them. All that Lindír hated about humanity, he placed upon the shoulders of that statue. As he glared at it, stomach heavy with fire, he found that the graven face of the god of war began to resemble that of his father.

Lindír sprang upon the statue, biting and clawing at it. There was no strategy, no goal behind his attack other than the impetuous rage of a wolf set upon a scarecrow. His teeth could not cut stone as they did flesh, but they bit deep, and his claws scored across the statue’s false armor. Petulant puffs of flame burst from his jaws at odd intervals, singeing black the statue’s undamaged skin.

At the sight of this apparently-sudden attack, the folk of the town began to stampede away from the courtyard, screaming and wailing that the dragon had gone mad. Had it been merely between Lindír and the humans, catastrophe might have followed. The town guard would have been assembled, and fallen upon Lindír with crossbows and long spears; whereupon a great battle would have taken place, ending with Lindír enraged and who knows how many men dead before him. But the town guard would take some time to assemble. Time enough, as it happened, for Ámnistr to overhear the commotion and rush to Lindír’s side.

By that point, Lindír’s rage had been mostly spent, and he had fallen to stalking around the statue in a circle. He still hated it, growling and glaring and letting sparks drip from his jaws in a display whose only audience was carved from grey stone, but could not bring himself to savage it once again. Especially not after the first attack had uprooted several of his teeth, leaving his mouth bloody and sore while the freshly-grown points punctured his gums. It was this scene, an empty courtyard, a furious dragon, and a scarred statue, that Ámnistr arrived in.

“Nephew,” he said. “What’s this new anger I see? You look bitten.”

Lindír struggled to form the words, to force his tongue to pronounce the words of the northern tongue rather than the guttural growls of rage rising up from within. “I hate them,” he finally said. “The humans, their gods, I hate them all.”

Ámnistr frowned. He approached Lindír carefully, gingerly, one hand outstretched in a gesture of comfort. “This about your ma and pa?”

Lindír scowled. It had been a mistake to relinquish the secret of his upbringing to Ámnistr. He had only done it out of weakness, on a dark night when he was wracked by nightmares, and the scars on his snout would not stop stinging. Now Ámnistr was bringing it up again.

“I am a dragon!” Lindír cried. “I should be a terror of humanity, a hunter, not something they gawk at in the streets! What is a dragon, if not a beast to be feared?”

“A dragon can be many things,” Ámnistr said. He spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and was now but a couple of steps from Lindír. “A terror’s one of em, that much is true. Who put it in your head that that was the end of the list?”

“Nobody told me,” Lindír lied. His maids had told him as a child. His parents had told him as an adolescent. “I figured it out. I know the story of Sivnis, the great beast of Hundrland, the greatest of all dragons. Humans have their pathetic gods. I have her.”

Ámnistr placed a hand on Lindír’s shoulder, just before where the wing met the neck. The touch made Lindír ache. His rage melted away, leaving only pain and weakness. He sank low to the ground, expecting admonishments, fury, caustic spite.

But Ámnistr spoke softly, running his fingers across Lindír’s rough scales with the acuity of a musician. “Nephew, there was something I meant to show you when Koldenfest was done.”

“What was it?”

“A relic of the past,” the Drum said. “Something with… meaning, to me and my kin. But I see now that it might mean more to you than to me. We could leave this city today, if it calls to you.”

Lindír raised his head to look at Ámnistr’s squinting, ancient eyes. “Why? What would it matter to me if I’ve never seen it before?”

“Can’t rightly explain that now. It’s not the nature of the place, it’s…” Ámnistr sighed. “My words are failing me. But I think it’ll do you good, nephew. Ease your pain.”

    “Then show it to me. I’ll be on the hill, north of town.”

    

…

 

To the east of Nederborg, forming the border between Garganland and the neighboring country of Teirheim, was a land of jagged hills and low mountains. It was into those mountains that Lindír and his mentor traveled, climbing steadily upward over the course of three long days.

The frigidity of winter already bit deep in the lowlands around Nederborg. But with altitude and distance from the warm waters of the inland sea came cold beyond anything Lindír had ever experienced in his life, having spent every previous winter in warmer climes. All of existence was blanketed in layers of fine white, and the air bit at every fraction of exposed flesh, until Lindír was sure that not even his flame would be able to preserve him.

Lindír asked several times what it was that Ámnistr sought, and was given only vague answers that he would know when he saw it. If it were anyone else, Lindír would have long since turned back, believing it a waste of time. But in the relatively short time that he had come to know the giant, so great a trust had been cultivated between the two of them that Lindír was willing to go on with no promise of reward at all.

He began to see it on the third day. The hills and mountains swaddled many old things, huge boulders and great trees. But never before had Lindír seen squat structures of stone hidden betwixt the peaks, standing tall yet abandoned like old gravestones in a cemetery the size of a city. At first there were only one or two at a time, small outposts, but with each passing meadow they became more frequent. Sometimes they would sit in twos or threes, brothers laying to rest and watch the centuries pass, or there would be a single huge structure with many smaller ones clustered around it. And then, at last, Lindír and Ámnistr crested a hill which seemed the same as all the others, only to see laid out before them a sight which stole the breath from Lindír’s lungs.

Before them, covering the hills and valleys like a great grey forest, lay not scores of these ancient ruins, but hundreds of them, thousands, stretching out so far that not even Lindír could see an end to them through the snow and haze. Clusters of grey stone huts stood together, separated by paved roads now overgrown with moss. Huge domed structures and towers to shame the keep of the Red Citadel loomed over them in the distance. Lindír, accustomed to a world built for humans, suddenly felt the altogether new sensation of being utterly small.

“Once,” Ámnistr pronounced, “this place was called Yrgastrond. It was a city of my kin, and the place of my birth. Now it’s just ruins. Come, nephew. There’s a camp to make.”

Descending from the hilltop into the midst of the ruins of Yrgastrond felt like walking slowly and calmly into the open maw of a behemoth. Though Lindír knew he could open his wings and fly away at any moment, he felt pressed to the earth, as though only by avoiding the air would he avoid the city’s ire. Only as he followed Ámnistr down the remnants of the city’s enormous avenues did he realize the extent of its decrepitude. From a distance, all of the structures had appeared alike, and he had processed each one as a proud husk of its former self. Up close, however, he saw that there were a substantial number which had collapsed entirely and been overgrown with foliage. There were animals amongst the ruin as well, rats and weasels and hardy birds which found the stone hollows and outcroppings to suit them.

Indeed, there was enough foliage around for Ámnistr to form a small but resolute fire, warming his hands upon it and heating some preserved venison at least enough to be edible. They ate in silence. Finally, when there was nothing left to do but watch the city fall into darkness, Ámnistr spoke once more.

“So, nephew. What do you know of the fate of the giants?”

“Little,” Lindír said. “They ruled the world, they built many spectacular things, and then they… died? Left? Faded away?”

“Aye, that is the gist of it.”

“You said you were born here. What happened?”

“War, I think. Or perhaps famine. Or war because of famine. I don’t remember, to speak the truth. I was but a lad, then, and I knew little; and what I did know then I have mostly forgotten, what with the weight of the centuries. The humans love telling stories about it. Say my kind was the older sort, the more sinful sort. We failed to follow the ways of the gods, and so our own sin sank into the bones like gangrene until we inevitably grew sick and died.”

“Is that what happened? Is that what caused the war?”

Ámnistr shrugged. “Maybe it is. Or maybe it was just a run of bad luck. Bad winters, bad harvests, the right men making the wrong choices at the wrong time. Once a war starts, it’s tough to stop. All that I know is…” Ámnistr looked down into the fire, his brow wrinkled and furrowed, and when his gaze rose to meet Lindír’s, it was a gaze that spoke to pain beyond reckoning. “…it’s been quite a while since the last time I crossed paths with another giant. Longer still since I met any that weren’t old strays like me.”

“I suppose that makes two of us,” said Lindír.

“Aye, it does.”

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“They didn’t deserve it,” Lindír continued. “You should have been able to live with your people. There should still be a home for giants to return to.”

“Maybe so,” Ámnistr said. “But the thing you have to ken is that it means nothing.”

“There’s no need for pointless pessimism!” Lindír raised his head, bending it back like a swan’s to put himself on equal level with the Drum. “Of course it meant something. They were your people, uncle.”

“Pessimism? No, not pessimism. It’s just the truth. None of it meant a thing. You see that little rat-thing, nephew, burrowing away under the rubble?” Ámnistr raised one fur-clad hand in the direction of a nearby ruin. “That creature has a home because Yrgastrond fell. And he means just as much as any of the giants who lived here, including me, and you, and all the rest. My folk built Yrgastrond over five hundred years, and all their work amounted to a nest for rats.”

“Then all the work was a waste? And the demise of your people meant nothing to you?” Lindír slid closer to the fire, his limbs shifting uneasily and his wings shuffling about. “What am I supposed to learn from this, besides to despise the world?”

Ámnistr scowled, and for a moment the old fear returned, that he had aroused the old giant’s ire. And indeed, when he spoke, his tone was low and gruff. “The demise of my people meant everything, nephew. Because I still live, and my heart remembers those who are gone. And when Yrgastrond was built, all those who built it, it mattered to them as well, because it was their home, and the home for their kind and kin. But in a thousand years, when I am laid to rest, who will care for the demise of the giants then?”

“Someone will,” Lindír said. “I’m sure of it.”

“As a story, perhaps. But not as a real thing. Nothing lasts forever.”

Lindír settled back down, gazing deeply into the flames. There he stayed for some time. Ámnistr’s words rolled about in his mind, accumulating and shedding layers of meaning as he tried to grasp at them, to hold them tight in his claws and turn them about. But every attempt he made, they slipped away, rejecting him. At last, Lindír spoke again; but he did not speak to Ámnistr, but to let the words drift off into the wind.   

“If there is no legacy, then what am I? I spent my whole life in the shadow of death. If that shadow is all there is, death stalking ever closer and with it the total destruction of all I am and ever will be… then why not simply go back to the Red Citadel?”

Ámnistr’s expression fell. He thrust out both hands, warming them on the fire, though surely by that point they were more than sufficiently warm. “Oh, poor thing. That’s not what I meant by it at all. For a troubadour, I can make a hash of words.” He cracked his knuckles and coughed, clearing a pernicious bit of effluvia from his throat. “There’s a story I haven’t told you yet. Mind if I tell it?”

Lindír’s neck coiled, chin only barely lifted from the cold, hard soil. He turned away from the fire and looked out at the ruin; as the sun set, the nocturnal wildlife grew ever more active, and the ruins seemed to be coming alive. The only light was the dim orange halo cast by their campfire. A good time for telling a story, he decided.

“Tell it,” Lindír said. “Tell it if you think it will help. Or if it won’t. I suppose you think that it doesn’t matter.”

Ámnistr made no comment, but merely prepared to story-tell. It was a ritual that Lindír had seen scores of times previous, at nearly every village and town at which they had stopped in the duration of their companionship. The giant became still as a statue, aside from his great belly, which expanded with air, then let it all out in a great breath. He gazed straight ahead, as though reading from words carved into a far-off mountainside. When he spoke, his voice was almost more melodious than when he sang. Loud, but not overwhelming, deep but not forceful.

“Beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers, there was a town whose name has been long forgotten. It was a good town, with fertile fields of grain and apples, a town square where merchant and cobbler could rub shoulders, and even a lord whose purse was always open for charitable causes. There was little to remark about this town, besides its goodness; indeed, there were other towns that were just as good. But none could claim that this town, in particular, was not the best a town could be.

“But alas, all good things must come to an end. And the end of this town came in the form of a mighty dragoness. Her name, too, has been forgotten, for though she was stronger than many dragons, there were other dragons who were just as strong, even then. Her title and her deeds, though, they are remembered, and I shall tell you them now.

“The dragoness arrived all a-flame, and with her claws and teeth and fire she burned and tore and smashed the homes and shops of the town. At once, the few knights who lived in the town, and the handfuls of townsfolk who knew the art of spear or crossbow, gathered together, and fought the dragoness. They were brave men, one and all, with sharp steel and stalwart shields. But they could not match a dragoness’s might, and so perished to a man.

“But their valorous deaths were not in vain, for a few strikes of spear and shots of bow, through luck or skill, had wounded her. She was forced to cease her rampaging, and lick her wounds amidst the ruin. And it was there and then that a young woman, no older than twenty, walked up to the dragoness.

“Her name is forgotten, for though she was beautiful, there were other women even in that town who were as beautiful as she. They say her hair was the red of fresh clay, and her eyes like fine hazel-wood, and her lips were as soft and pink as fruit. But she was not named for her beauty, but for her mind; though she did sometimes cry, she never despaired, and even in the worst times was never without hope. And so they called her Ever-joy.

“Ever-joy approached the dragoness, her face free from fear, until she was close enough that it could hear the soft sound of her slippers on the stone. The dragoness raised her head and made ready to snap her up in an instant when Ever-joy did something that the dragoness could not have expected. She offered to brush the soot and dirt from off of her scales.

“The dragoness, though by no means a vain creature, was so taken aback by this request that she allowed it. Ever-joy took out a stiff horse-hair brush and began to sweep the soot and dust from the dragoness’s scales. But she was not quiet while she worked. Instead, she talked with the dragoness. Ever-joy asked her about all the places she had been, and all of the battles she had fought. She asked about how often she cleaned herself, and what it felt like to fly. And as her brush revealed the many scars that webbed the dragoness’s hide, Ever-joy asked about those too.

“But eventually Ever-joy, always deft of hand and skilled at chores, finished cleaning the dragoness. Before the dragoness could rise and rush away to continue her path of destruction, Ever-joy spoke again. This time, having seen how many scars decorated the dragoness’s hide, she offered to rub a certain herb into them, an herb which her aunt had once told her was good for old injuries. The dragoness enjoyed the generosity of the girl who would soon be her victim, and she knew that tearing down the stones of the town’s churches would cause her scars to scream with pain if not treated. So when Ever-joy said that she would need only a scant few minutes to retrieve the herbs in question, the dragoness relented.

“And indeed, when Ever-joy returned, a jar of sweet-smelling herbs in hand, the dragoness lay lazily upon the loam, eyes half-shut and claws tucked underneath her. Ever-joy sat once more at the dragoness’s side, crushing the leaves in the palm of her hand and rubbing them along the long white lines of scar. This time, she did not ask questions of the dragoness, but instead gossiped like a hen. She told every story she knew, of passionate love affairs and drunken mishaps, and of the challenges and triumphs of her own life as well.

“But eventually that, too, was done, and the dragoness began to rise to her feet to resume her rampage. She gave her thanks to Ever-joy. But Ever-joy wrinkled her nose, and said that the dragoness’s teeth were full of rotten meat and char, and stank horribly. She made one last offer: before the dragoness flew off, would she not allow Ever-joy to climb into her mouth and clean her teeth, if only a little? The dragoness agreed.

“So she rested her chin on the ground, and hinged her jaw open wide, and allowed Ever-joy to step within. Once more, Ever-joy was not silent while she picked away at the detritus; for she never worked in silence. This time, she spoke from her heart’s heart. It was a tragedy, she said, that so powerful a creature as this dragoness should be reduced to a life of constant destruction. She was scarred from countless battles against countless foes, her scales and teeth stained and tainted with rot and ruin, and for what?

“That done, Ever-joy stepped out from between the dragoness’s jaws, and admitted that she had rendered her as clean and healthy as could be. There was no more reason to delay, and the dragoness could destroy as much as she wished. Ever-joy opened her arms wide and suggested that she be the first victim.

“But the dragoness did not move. Instead she spoke. She said that she had traveled far, and caused more suffering than she could count. And now this little human girl had shown her kindness and eased her pain even after all that. Ever-joy had told her so much about the town and its people that she could no longer bear to see it incinerated, and she especially could not bear to see the light in those hazel-wood eyes extinguished.

“At this, Ever-joy threw up her arms and rejoiced, for this was what she had hoped to accomplish all along. Immediately she hugged the dragoness’s snout and began to ramble about plans for the future. The first thing would be to fix the buildings which had been destroyed, which would be no struggle with dragon’s strength. And then, perhaps, the dragoness could live in the town, to protect it against the dangers of war and foul magic, and tell stories of her travels to the people, and let the children ride upon her back.

“The dragoness agreed that, if it meant being able to live where Ever-joy lived, that she could do as she had suggested. Slowly, as the townsfolk realized that they were no longer in danger, they emerged to look upon the wondrous thing: a dragoness tamed by a young woman. And a person whose name has been forgotten, for there were many other people just like them, shouted forth a title for the dragon. They called her Small-Home.

“And if they have not died yet, then they still live today.”

Ámnistr lowered his head, gazing once more into the fire. After a moment, Lindír wriggled spasmodically, the utter stillness he had taken on during the full duration of the story suddenly catching up to him all at once.

“That was a stupid story,” he said. “How many men did Small-Home put in the ground, only to be forgiven as though it were nothing?”

Ámnistr shrugged. “She did not kill any more.”

“This is a story for children,” Lindír said with a sneer. “A dragon’s mind is not so easily changed, especially not from a proper dragon to a... a toy pony! Why did you tell me this?”

“A toy pony? That is not how I read the tale; I see not a toy pony, but a guardian, a pillar around which the town can build itself ever higher. Who ever said that a dragon could not be that, too?”

Lindír shifted closer to the flames. “What is your lesson, then? That I should abandon all I am, become whatever others need of me?”

“Nephew, please,” the giant said with a frown, a hint of righteous anger playing at the edges of his voice. “You cannot live your life by the principles of others. Find your own path, a path that will bring you peace. That’s what I’m trying to teach you.”

But he was finding his own path, Lindír thought. Had he not been doing so ever since he escaped from the Red Citadel, ever since he had sworn to live free of humanity? Or was he merely defining himself under another set of borrowed principles?

Lindír realized that he was tired, and lethally sick of lessons. The cold nipped at his tail. He stood, padding around the campfire until he could curl up with his shoulder against Ámnistr’s flank.

“I am going to sleep,” Lindír announced.

Ámnistr patted him gently on the wing-joint. “Aye, nephew, it has been a long evening. You’ll be a good lad, when you’re grown. Sleep well.”

 

 

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