The Beginning Chapter 2

Chapter Two.

 

A Dragon’s Tale.

 

They sat in silence for five minutes before Das swooped down beside them.

“Calizone is on her way,” he announced. “She refused to sit on me, and as you know, she really hates flying.”

“She is coming, then?” asked Jasmine.

“Oh yes,” said Das, nodding vigorously. “Once I explained what it was about, she was very keen.”

“Good,” rumbled the Royal Dragon. “You may return to the Islands as soon as she arrives. You have done your task.”

“Thank you!” said Das. “And this time I hope I never have to leave them again.”

“Don’t you want to hear what happened?” Jasmine asked.

“Definitely not,” said Das. “All I want is to go home and eat seaweed.”

They waited in silence for a few more minutes until a horse appeared at the top of the beach. Calizone dismounted and strode across the sand.

“Goodbye,” said Das, and before anyone could reply, he launched himself skyward and vanished over the sea.

“Calizone, I presume,” said the Royal Dragon.

“Yes,” said Calizone. “This had better be good. I am not used to being summoned like this by anyone.”

“If you wish to know what happened all those years ago, then you must sit and listen,” said the Royal Dragon. “And do remember, you cannot harm me with your magic.”

Calizone sat down beside Jasmine and Emdan.

The Royal Dragon began. “To start with, I should introduce myself. I am the last of the first hatching. All my brothers and sisters have passed on. I will not tell you my true name, but you may call me Eldest.”

He sighed, and a small puff of smoke drifted from his nostril. “It is hard to know where to begin.”

“Try the beginning,” snapped Calizone.

Eldest glared at her. “It is hard to know where the beginning is. Much of what I am about to tell you is not my own story, but what I have learned or been told by others.”

He settled himself more comfortably. “Much of this happened before there were any dragons at all, so you will have to take my word for it. The only humans who could argue are locked inside Dragon Skin Boxes.”

Eldest chuckled. “Old Uncle Arthur would have been mortified if he’d known what his skin would end up being.”

Calizone shifted, but Eldest lifted a claw to silence her.

“In a human village many, many miles from here, and a very long time ago, lived a girl. She was malformed, bent and twisted, and, by her own description, remarkably ugly.” He added, “Her words, not mine. Dragons have no idea what humans consider beautiful.”

He continued. “This poor girl was shunned by everyone in the village. Even her father was ashamed of her. He treated her very badly, beat her with his belt if she did the slightest thing wrong. Her mother was no better.”

“Poor girl,” whispered Jasmine.

Eldest nodded. “In time, the villagers began to believe she was a witch. If a calf was stillborn, they blamed the girl. If the milk soured, they blamed the girl. If the beer failed to ferment, they blamed the girl.”

“That is terrible,” said Emdan.

“In the end, she could bear no more and fled into the Forest. What no one in the village had ever bothered to discover was that this girl was clever, very clever.”

He lowered his voice slightly, as though the Forest itself might be listening.

“She wandered until she found a clearing far from any other humans. She felt only hate and fear, hatred for those who had mistreated her, and fear that they might find her again.

“She built herself a shelter and made a bed of ferns and pine needles. And since the villagers had called her a witch, she decided she would become one. She spent hours trying to do magic… with very little success.”

“You need to be born with the power,” said Calizone.

Eldest glared at her. “She spent hours collecting plants, bark, and fungus from the Forest. She mixed them together and tried them on herself. It is a wonder she did not poison herself.”

“I expect she already knew many of the plants,” said Calizone. “Most villagers know what you can eat from the Forest.”

“Be that as it may,” Eldest continued, “one day she tried a very simple spell, and to her delight and astonishment, it worked. From then on, there was no stopping her. She attempted more and more complicated spells, and in doing so she worked out the rules that govern them.”

Smugly, Calizone said, “All spells must have either a time limit or a way of being broken. I’ll bet she gave herself some horrible moments discovering that.”

Eldest ignored her tone. “Then one day she had a stroke of good fortune. Robbers attacked a merchant on the road near her hut. They stole his money, clothes, and horse, and left him for dead. His merchandise was no use to them, so they scattered it across the road. It was a pack of notebooks and pencils. Most were ruined, but some were still usable. She left the poor man to die and took the notebooks home. In one of them she wrote down all her potions and what they did. She also recorded every spell she cast.”

“I wish I had that notebook now,” said Calizone.

“It will have turned to dust long ago,” said Emdan. “I’ve found old books that crumble at a touch.”

Eldest continued as though he had not heard. “She began to wander further afield. As she did, she noticed that the farther she travelled from her hut, the weaker her magic became.

“On her travels she often met other people. They took one look at her and fled. When she entered a village, the people set their dogs on her and chased her away. Her fear and hatred grew and grew.”

“I’m not surprised,” murmured Jasmine. “Anyone would become bitter.”

Eldest nodded. “Indeed. And her fear and hatred grew so strong that they took on a life of their own. They became separate beings, small at first, unnoticed and unheeded.

“She returned to her hut and explored the area around it more thoroughly. Hidden deep in a bramble thicket she found something very strange. There was a clear space behind the tangle of thorns. Curious, she pushed the stems aside.

“It was like looking through a window. On the other side she saw a forest like hers, stretching away into the distance. But it was not a reflection, the scene was different enough for her to realise that.”

“I know what this is!” cried Calizone, leaping to her feet.

“Then you tell the story,” said Eldest.

Shamefaced, Calizone sat down again. “Sorry.”

Eldest waited until she settled. “She pushed her way through the brambles to where the back of the window ought to be. To her astonishment, the back showed exactly the same scene. Even stranger, although the window had a front and a back, it had no sides. It was simply a hole through which she could see.

“Gingerly she touched the centre of the hole. It was solid. She could not push her hand through. But touching it had an extraordinary effect.

“She felt a surge of power rush through her whole body. Suddenly she knew, somehow, that her magic had become so strong she could hardly contain it.”

“I knew you had to be born with it,” Calizone whispered to Jasmine. “She got hers from there.”

Eldest ignored her. “She returned to her hut and looked around. ‘I need somewhere better to live than this,’ she thought. A spell leapt into her mind, and the hut changed into a neat thatched cottage. ‘That should last a few centuries,’ she said.

“Meanwhile, the beings created from her hate and fear were slowly growing. A war was fought near where they lived, and they fed on the hatred and fear of the battle. They grew larger and more powerful.

They found they could move around the world. Everywhere they went, they fed on hatred and fear, growing stronger still. And the stronger they became, the more they hated all life. Wherever they roamed, they left a trail of lifeless devastation.

They travelled north to the land of the Ice Queen. The cold was too much even for them. They vowed to return.

They wandered south to the realm of the Fire Demon, where the ground burns forever. They could not survive the heat. They vowed to return.

As you may have guessed, the Witch was Alphaz. She spent much time trying to discover the secret of the hole. She watched the other forest through it. It seemed much like her own. Birds flew from tree to tree. Once she glimpsed a squirrel scurrying up a trunk.

She tried many times to pass through the hole. It did not matter which side she tried, it would not let her.

“One day, by chance, she was sitting quietly by the hole when a dark brown rabbit lolloped out of the trees on the other side and nibbled its way right up to the opening. On Alphaz’s side, a large frog hopped up to the hole and stared at the rabbit.

Without thinking, Alphaz pushed the frog at the hole. It went through. The rabbit appeared on her side. The frog hopped away on the wrong side of the hole, and the rabbit fled into the brambles. Neither looked any different.

Alphaz cast a spell to drag the rabbit back. It froze as she picked it up. It was exactly like the rabbits she sometimes caught for food.

She tried to push it back through the hole. It would not go. On the other side, the frog returned. Alphaz cast the same spell on it. The frog hopped up to the hole. She pushed the rabbit, and this time it went through. The frog appeared on her side.

“She examined it carefully. It looked exactly like any other frog. She set it down and watched it hop away. The rabbit on the far side vanished into the trees.”

Calizone nodded thoughtfully. “Something has to swap sides.”

“Exactly,” said Eldest. “Alphaz realised this quickly. Even more interesting, she could cast a spell on her side that worked on the other.

She pulled up a clump of rough grass and carried it to the hole. She cast a spell on a clump of grass on the far side. When it reached the hole, she pushed her own clump through. They swapped.

 ‘This is more like a door than a hole,’ she said to herself.’”

Emdan stood and paced the beach. “I think I understand. There must be balance between the two sides. The door only opens when something from one side changes places with something from the other.”

“Yes,” said Eldest. “And Alphaz worked that out as quickly as you did. She spent many hours watching through the door, hoping that one day a person would appear, so that she could explore the other forest.”