Steven George and The Dragon
Nathan Everett
Steven George
& The Dragon
NWE Signatures, LLC
Bellevue, Washington
Copyright ©2011 by Nathan Everett
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Steven George
& The Dragon
1
The Implausible Hat
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a dragonslayer named Steven George. He could not remember whether he had volunteered for the task or had been chosen. He did not know when he would be called upon to slay the dragon. He did not even really know what a dragon was—aside from the fact that it was fierce, and to be feared, and it breathed fire. He knew, however, from his earliest memories that he was the one who would one day slay the dragon.
“One day” came when a sheep was discovered slain near his village, its bloody carcass left partially charred near the river. The village elder said that the time had come. The dragon had attacked. It was time to send the dragonslayer to do his job. The villagers held a great feast in honor of Steven. His sweetheart was especially nice to him. The women of the village bathed and groomed him for the ritual feast. The men cooked food and beat on drums. Everyone he met in the village congratulated him on his great new adventure. Steven was pleased that he would finally fulfill his destiny and that the whole village was celebrating.
The dragon—Steven assumed—lived high on a mountain on the other side of a wide river. Steven had often seen plumes of smoke rise from its peak. Dragons breathe fire. There was smoke on the mountain. Therefore, the dragon must live there. If Steven could just figure out how to get across the wide and treacherous river, he could walk up the mountain, slay the dragon, and be home in time for dinner. But there was no way across the river. So Steven planned his strategy carefully. Exactly 10,230 steps downstream, an equally wide and treacherous river joined the one near his village, and became even wider, more treacherous, and impossible to cross. Steven determined to walk upstream until the river narrowed or became shallow enough to cross, and then he would come back downstream on the other side to the dragon’s mountain.
Steven was ready to shoulder his pack and step off his front stoop—the first step of his journey—when his sweetheart approached.
“Steven, dear, I’ve packed you a lunch,” she said. She handed him a small parcel wrapped in oiled skin and looked at him lovingly. “So now you are off to slay the dragon. My hero. All my life I will pine away on our doorstep, dreaming of my brave dragonslayer. People will nod their heads when they pass and say, ‘She loved Steven George the Dragonslayer.’ Poets will write of our love and how you rode off to meet the dragon to protect your village and your love. I am so proud of you!”
Steven didn’t really know what to say other than to mumble quietly, “walked,” as there was nothing for him to ride on. He kissed his sweetheart and said he expected he would be gone a few days. He already had strips of dried meat and dried fruits in his pack, but he accepted the proffered lunch, looked sadly at his sweetheart and took step number one. Two, three, four, five, six. Steven always counted his steps. As long as he knew how many steps from home he was, he knew where he was. Steven had counted the steps to the river, the steps to the pastures, the steps to the field. Steven had counted the steps between his home and his mother’s home. He had counted the steps around the village long-house. Knowing the number of steps he had taken was a comfort to Steven. 14, 15, 16, 17.
Steven walked at the steady, measured pace of 80 steps per minute. To walk more slowly would make it appear that he was reluctant to proceed on his journey or to perform his task. To walk more rapidly would make it appear that he was rushing and careless. He counted each step until he stopped before the village hunter who stood in the road blocking his path.
Over the years, the hunter had taught Steven the arts of making arrows, setting traps, and surviving in the wilderness. Now the hunter stood before Steven and offered him his second best bow and a quiver of arrows.
“You will need something with which to kill the dragon, Steven George,” said the hunter. “I want you to take my bow and arrows so that you can make our village safe from the dragon again.”
Steven accepted the bow and quiver of arrows gratefully from the hunter. He hadn’t been exactly sure how he would slay the dragon, but now he felt confident that he was fully equipped. He proceeded farther through the village as people gathered silently to watch him go. Occasionally a mother would say in hushed tones to her child, “There goes Steven George the Dragonslayer. Remember this day.” As he moved forward—35, 36, 37, 38—the village wise woman stepped out in the street to greet him. Steven had spent hours in the fields with the wise woman learning the properties of various herbs. She was also the best cook in the village.
“Steven, you will have many adventures and may face many dangers. This packet of herbs will heal any wound. It is just like the packet that I keep with me at all times. Just smelling them will revive your spirits.” She lowered her voice until it was barely a whisper and Steven leaned in to hear her. “Just a pinch in your soup will make the poorest meal taste like a king’s feast,” she winked at him. Steven gratefully accepted the packet of herbs thinking how fortunate he was to have this healing remedy in case he was injured. He walked on through the village—51, 52, 53, 54. He came to the shaman who stepped into the street to greet him. The shaman had taught Steven the art of spirit journeys and storytelling. They had spent many a night sitting by the fire trading tales of things imagined.
“Steven George,” said the shaman, “as you travel the path to your dragon, wear this talisman. It is like the one I wear. It will bring you luck in this world and the spirit world, and will give you safety and warm welcome wherever you journey.” Steven proudly accepted the strangely shaped badge and fastened it on his shirt. He stood a little straighter as he walked through the village—69, 70, 71. Steven was near the end of his small village when the village elder stepped out to block his path. During his life, Steven George had spent many hours with the elder, learning about village politics and just judgment. He was like a grandfather to Steven.
“Steven George,” said the elder. “You will journey a long road and will become weary as the burden of this task is great. Take this staff to lean on. It is like the one that symbolizes my position in the village. You are not only our dragonslayer, but our emissary to the world. Wield this staff with authority.” Steven accepted the staff from the village elder with awe. It made a pleasant thump as Steven stepped out with it, and for a moment he was uncertain if the proper protocol would be to count the thump of the staff as one of his steps, but he abandoned that thought rapidly and continued counting only his footsteps—91, 92, 93. He was near the last step of the village when his mother stepped into his path to embrace him.
“Steven,” she sobbed. “I’ve given you everything I can—my love, my faith, my hope. But honestly, you can’t go off to who knows where without a hat. You’ll catch your death of cold.” With that, Steven’s mother presented him with a conical hat made of sheepskin, complete with flaps over his ears. Steven had never seen a hat quite like this one. It was late summer and Steven was already hot—and embarrassed.
“Mo-ther,” he moaned. But she beamed at him in pride, so Steven held his tongue and wore his mother’s gift as he stepped boldly out of the village—103, 104, 105. Steven did not look back. He set his face toward the river and then walked upstream until the village was out of sight behind him—at exactly 637 steps. When no one could see him, he lengthened his stride to a far more comfortable hiking speed of 100 steps per minute.
The ground seemed to fly beneath him as he went with a light heart up the stream. Going did not continue to be easy, however. After 10,000 steps, the well-worn paths near the village faded to lesser-used trails leading to the upper pastures, the mountain people’s village, and the wilderness. Soon, even these changed to hunter’s trails, which in turn faded to game tracks. Steven was forced away from the river by swampy ground, then by a forested ridge. He continued to push back against the land that seemed set against his plan to follow the river. His progress slowed and the ground no longer seemed to fly. His pace fell from 100 steps per minute down to 80, then 60, finally forcing him to slow to less than 40 steps per minute in order to press through the overgrown paths.
It was approaching evening when Steven broke through the underbrush to see the river gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Just as he came from under the shelter of the trees, a flock of ducks noisily rose from the banks of the river, startling him. Lagging behind them, Steven watched as an animal with wings and a writhing tail rose laboriously to follow the flock.
Steven was elated at his luck. Surely this must be the dragon, come to feed on the flocks by the river. He strung his bow and nocked an arrow but before he could draw the bow the creature plunged out of the sky and fell to earth. Steven ran toward the site as fast as he could through tall sand grass, not letting go of the bow and arrow. Suddenly the ground fell out from under him and he plunged down a steep dune, tumbling head over heels out of control. He landed hard on a soft object that made a muffled quack when he hit and then was very still.
Steven scrambled to his feet, raced to grab the bow and arrow that had flown from his hands in the fall and turned to face the monster. It lay pressed into the sand by the imprint of Steven’s buttocks. He approached cautiously. He reached out with the bow and nudged the beast but it lay still. He walked carefully around it.
It was not the dragon.
A duck, apparently snacking with its companions in the shallows along the shore happened upon a snake. Seeing the tip of the snake’s tail, the duck must have mistaken it for a tasty morsel. When roused abruptly from its snakely pastimes, the snake turned on the duck, unhinged its jaw and clamped down on the duck’s tail. Thus joined mouth to tail and tail to mouth, the duck attempted flight with its fellows, but was unable to stay airborne with snake in its mouth and attached to its tail. Steven had seen it plummet back to earth.
We will never know if snake or duck would have emerged victorious in this little battle. When Steven fell down the embankment he landed on the stunned pair and finished their struggle with the impact. Both duck and snake were dead. What had appeared to be the dragon, now looked like dinner. Steven built a fire, plucked and gutted the duck, skinned the snake and set both to roast with a pinch of the wise woman’s herbs for good measure. It was his first night out, he was 19,254 steps from home, and his feet hurt, but he feasted on roast duck and dried and packed the snake in the oilskin packet that had formerly held the lunch packed by his sweetheart.
Steven tidied up his campsite, intending to get a good night’s sleep before he continued on his journey in the morning. As he prepared to burn the duck feathers and guts, he caught sight of his hat lying where it had fallen in his tumble down the slope.
He looked at the hat. He looked at the feathers. He nodded his head as a new creation suddenly took shape in his mind. Steven sat and intently began jabbing the feathers into the wool of the sheepskin hat. When the hat was fully covered with feathers, he wrapped the snakeskin twice around it to create a hatband. He removed the talisman the shaman had given him and fastened the ends of the snakeskin together with it.
When he was finished, Steven’s hat looked nothing at all like the hat his dear mother had given him. In fact, the feathered headdress surpassed description. Steven placed it upon his head, picked up the staff of the village elder and chanted in a low voice as he danced around the fire. He had not slain the dragon this day. He did, however, have a fine new hat and he slept a peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.
2
The Obstructive Bridge
STEVEN CONTINUED on his journey in the morning with a light heart, a ridiculous hat, and sore feet that were slowing his normal walking pace. He changed socks in the morning, washed out his first pair, and hung them from his pack to dry. He discovered that he had blisters from the previous day and they made walking painful.
He had traveled only 11,256 steps that day when the blisters got the better of him and he was forced to make camp to tend to his feet. He used a pinch of the wise woman’s herbs on them, ate a meal of dried snake, and went to sleep, dreaming of the home that was now 30,510 steps behind him. He had been unable to walk along the edge of the river because of unpredictable marshes and terrain, but he had managed to keep it in view periodically through the day and was confident that he was still taking the only possible course to the dragon. He only hoped that he would reach a crossing before he encountered another tributary which, like the one downstream from his home, would lead him away from, rather than toward his destination.
The next day his feet were better and he was able to make more progress. He came to a small brook, but a tree had fallen across the water and he was able to scramble along its trunk far enough that he could leap to the opposite bank from its limbs. Now, if only there were a tree large enough to fall across the big river, Steven might manage to cross over on its limbs. This thought kept him occupied through the night and the next day.
On the fifth day of his journey, the lowering sun shone in Steven’s eyes as he crested a small rise. 86,201, 86,202. Suddenly, he saw before him the dragon. It prowled, huge and lumbering, and as it moved it used its little hands to pop round creatures from the ground up into its gaping maw. Steven was horrified.
He strung his bow and nocked an arrow. Steven approached slowly this time, not wanting to repeat his fiasco of the first day. He wanted a closer look at this strange creature.
“Ho, Dragon!” called Steven as he approached more closely with his bow at the ready. “Stand and meet your fate for today you have met the dragonslayer.”
The dragon looked up, and then did a most remarkable thing. It stepped out of itself. Steven stared aghast as a man stepped forward.
“What do you want, stranger?” yelled the man. “Why do you come armed into my garden?”
“I’ve come to save you from the dragon that was intent on devouring you,” called back Steven looking at the rest of the dragon the man had left behind. The dragon was beginning to look more and more like a large basket.
“There’s no dragon here,” called the farmer.
Steven relaxed his grip on the bow and removed the arrow. He approached the farmer shyly and returned his offered greeting. Steven squinted his eyes at the basket, but he could no longer get it to look like the monster he had first taken it for. It was just a big basket that the farmer dragged along on his back while picking melons.
Steven told the melon farmer that he was on a quest to slay the dragon that harried his village, but confessed that he had never actually seen a dragon and mistook the farmer and his basket for the foe. The farmer got a good laugh out of this. Since Steven was there, and it was the peak of melon harvest, and it appeared he was capable of carrying a great deal on his back, the melon farmer convinced Steven to help him pick melons which amounted to Steven dragging the huge basket while the farmer placed the precious melons into it.
When evening descended and Steven had walked another 5,768 steps in service of the melons, he sat with the farmer in the evening light looking out at the river.
Suddenly Steven leapt to his feet and pointed across the river.
“The dragon!” Steven exclaimed. “I can see the smoke from his fiery breath.” This set the melon farmer off on another fit of laughter at the naiveté of his companion.
“That is not the dragon,” he laughed. “That is the town of Lastford. That is where I take my melons to be traded for the goods I need for the next year.”
“The next year?” asked Steven. “Do you mean you live here, but your village is on the other side of the river?” He began to get very excited. “Then there must be a way to cross the river. Is there a great tree that has fallen across it so we can walk across?”
“A tree? You mean a bridge across the river?” Now the melon farmer sounded both furious and insulted. “This is a ford—a place to wade across the river. Bridges are a great barrier to commerce.”
“I don’t understand,” said Steven.
The melon farmer nodded sagely. “You don’t know much, do you?” he asked. “I tell you what. I’ll tell you about bridges and help you get across the river if you will tell me the story of that very interesting hat you are wearing.”
“You mean you want to once-upon-a-time each other?” asked Steven. If there was one thing that Steven loved more than anything in the world, it was a good once-upon-a-time. If he could trade stories with the melon farmer, his quest would be far more exciting. When he returned home he would have more stories to tell his village. “I agree. You go first,” Steven said. The melon farmer agreed.
ONCE UPON A TIME, a long time ago and very far away, there lived a melon farmer, like me. Now it is a trait of melons that they do not grow well where many people are likely to travel and trample their vines. But it is a trait of people who live together to want melons to eat because they are sweet and moist. So there have been melon farmers from the beginning of time who would live far from the towns and villages to cultivate the melons under favorable conditions, and then transport them to the towns and villages in exchange for the necessities of life.
Such was the case with Ranihaha, a melon farmer near the River of Stolen Dreams and the village of Tornlace. Ranihaha lived on the west bank of the river where rich dark soil made the melons thrive, safely away from the village on the east bank. His crops were rich and his melons were so highly prized that the village celebrated the day when he brought the melons across the river to town.
That village held a festival when the melons came to town, and as its reputation grew, people from far away began to visit at melon harvest. Many of those people found that the village of Tornlace was a pleasant place to settle and raise a family. And so the village grew until it was a town, and the town until it was a small city. The small city had to elect a mayor. It had soldiers and workers of every sort.
But on one day of the year, all work in the city stopped. Musicians played, people danced, and the mayor led a parade of citizens to the banks of the river to await Ranihaha and his melons.
Ranihaha spent his quiet life pleasantly. The melon patch produced plenty to supply his needs as well as what he took to market. But it was treacherous to cross the river at any time except the hottest and driest season of the year, when the melons are their ripest and sweetest. Ranihaha studied the river and knew the exact day when it would be safe for him to load his raft with the harvest of the year and wade across the river towing it behind.
One year when Ranihaha had harvested his melons, loaded his raft, and waded the treacherous waters of the river to reach Tornlace, he was met at the water’s edge by the mayor and the parade of people all of whom fell upon the raft of melons with such ferocity that—in mere minutes—all the melons were taken and consumed. Ranihaha was rewarded richly and dined with the mayor that evening.
During dinner, the mayor turned to Ranihaha and said, “Melon farmer, let us talk business. We have become a city instead of a village. The melons you bring across the river once a year are scarcely enough to provide our needs. Our soldiers are occupied keeping people from fighting over the melons you bring. They scarcely get any for themselves. How can we get more melons?”
Ranihaha considered this and agreed to build a larger raft for the next year’s harvest and to bring more melons across with him. But the next year, the same thing was repeated and even with more melons, there were not enough to supply the still-growing city. Ranihaha could not build a bigger raft and still control it in the currents of the river. The mayor met with the city council to consider what should be done.
The next year, Ranihaha was met with his melons in an open square surrounded by soldiers who kept the citizens at bay with their swords and lances. The mayor had officials who took the melons and distributed them to the citizens—soldiers and council first. Then the mayor sat with Ranihaha and said, “Melon farmer we have decided that the best solution is to build a bridge. With a bridge that spans the river, we can cross over to help with the harvest, transport more melons across the river, and extend the festival season to many days instead of just one. What do you think?”
Ranihaha considered only a moment before saying, “I have no need of a bridge. I grow the melons and bring them by raft across the river. That is the way it is and has always been. There is no need for a bridge.”
But the mayor and the people of the city were adamant, and Ranihaha returned home silently, without the usual accompanying fanfare and without the usual wealth as the people began building the bridge.
By mid-summer the next year, the bridge was completed and the first person to cross the bridge was the mayor himself. He reached Ranihaha in his garden and announced jubilantly that the bridge had been completed and they could now have all the melons they wanted. He reached down and plucked a melon from the patch, opened it with his knife, and took a huge bite. Then he spat the huge bite across the garden. The melon was bitter.
“Where are the sweet melons, you dog?” cried the mayor. Ranihaha attempted to explain that the melons were not ripe until late summer when the water was lowest, but the mayor stomped back across the bridge in disgust, convinced that Ranihaha was keeping the sweet melons hidden.
As the summer wore on, more and more people crossed the bridge, trampling the vines in Ranihaha’s garden and sampling the melons with the same results as the mayor. But they found something else on the west bank of the river that people in crowded places are always looking for. They found space and good places to build homes.
Soon the bridge was jammed with people and carts bringing their belongings, building materials, children, and, of course, soldiers to guard their possessions.
When Ranihaha finally judged the meager crop of melons he had left to be ripe and the river to be low enough, he loaded his raft with melons and set out across the river. But bridges change the currents in the water and before he was across the water, his raft was caught in the new current, swung wildly about, and was dashed against the pilings of the bridge. All the melons were lost and Ranihaha barely escaped with his life.
He dragged himself to shore and looked at the ruins of his garden, the trampled vines, and the disgusting bridge. He packed his few belongings and a sack of melon seeds and quietly slipped away from the city of Tornlace to find a new garden where melons would grow as sweetly as honey and where the people had never heard of a bridge; for bridges are a great obstruction to commerce.
3
The Prophet of Doom
IN THE MORNING, Steven helped load the raft with melons, and then asked how he could get across. The melon farmer showed him how to build a raft like his own. When it was finished, it was obvious that the raft was much too big for Steven’s meager belongings, so the melon farmer suggested that they load Steven’s raft with melons as well. When they were finished, two rafts were loaded with melons and ready to cross the river with Steven’s belongings wedged into a tiny corner of one raft. The farmer looked at the load with satisfaction and announced that they would cross the river the next morning.
The day’s work done and a meal in their stomachs, the farmer turned to Steven for the story of his hat. Now Steven was an honest man, but having heard the wonderful story about the obstructive bridge made him feel as though the story of making his hat was small by comparison. It needed to be much more important to be a good story. So Steven cleared his throat and began in his best story-telling voice.
ONCE UPON A TIME, long ago but not so very far away, there was a peaceful little village that knew little of the world outside its cluster of huts and the meeting hall where they gathered for festivals and councils. The village had occupied this little spit of land for as long as any could remember. They supplied their own needs and fed themselves from their gardens and sheep herds. The only people from outside their village that they saw were those from the mountain village who joined them once each year for an autumn feast, where the young could dance, and seek marriage partners for the long winter months ahead.
No one else had come to the village in the memory of any of the elders. There were no roads that led from the village, only trails that led to the hunting, grazing, and planting lands that surrounded it. They were a happy people with no other particular cares.
One day there was a great stir in the village as a child had seen, from far off, a stranger walking through the fields. He was dressed in a foreign fashion with long black robes and a hat that defied description. By the time the stranger approached the village, all of the people had gathered at the council house. The stranger walked silently between the standing people making his way to the step where the village elder, the shaman, the wise woman, and the hunter stood waiting for him. The stranger stopped before them and raised a bony finger, shaking it in the face of the elder.
“You and all your people have been marked for eternal suffering by the dragon who sits in judgment over all mankind,” the stark figure intoned. “Repent, therefore, and worship the one who judges you.”
Well, that created quite a stir among the people. They had never heard of this dragon and had lived in peace all their lives. But the elder was a just and wise man. He, interpreting the shaking finger of the missionary as a greeting from this foreign person, stretched out his own bony finger at the stranger and intoned his own greeting.
“You will suffer a feast with the people this very day and will tell us the story that has brought you to our step. Bathe therefore in the river and present yourself at this step at sundown to trade stories with the people.”
The missionary had apparently heard every kind of invitation and threat before so he puffed himself up and raised his voice.
“I will be at this step when the sun touches the mountains. Let every man, woman, and child ready themselves to hear of their doom and to eat the fruits that have been placed before them.” With that, the missionary silently departed and went to the river to wash. The village made immediate preparations for a feast and to greet the strange guest as the elder instructed. This feast—for all it was short notice—was as bountiful as the annual two-village festival. Everyone was gathered together at the council house by the time the sun touched the mountain and the aromas of baked goods and roast fowl filled the air.
In the sun’s last gleams, the stranger once again approached, and his incredible hat seemed to catch and hold the fire of the sun as he strode boldly among the people to the steps where the elder, wise woman, hunter, and shaman awaited him. They escorted him inside the council house, seated him at the table among them, and feasted.
During the course of the dinner, the shaman remarked on the missionary’s unusual hat. That started the story-telling without so much as a once upon a time.
“This hat,” started the visitor, “is the badge of my office—an emissary from on high bringing the story of doom to all people. It is made of the feathers of the serpent and the skin of the hawk. This is the nature of the dragon. The dragon swoops down upon the unsuspecting and devours them in his fire. And that is the fate of this village. The dragon waits on his mountain for the day when you least expect it—the day when you feast in your homes and say what good lives you have. On that day, the dragon will come. All that you have will be as nothing. You will seek refuge but none will protect you. All your wisdom and all your lore will not help you. You will be as grass before the flames and tinder in the firebox.”
“That is a good story,” said the elder. “You are very exciting. And this hat protects you from the fierce wrath of the dragon?”
“The feathers are proof against fire and the skin against water. The wearer of this hat stands unafraid before the dragon,” he said.
The missionary went on for a long time, but soon the people tired of his doom and gloom, for he gave no one else a chance to tell a story. They retired to their homes and the prophet was given a place to sleep in the council house. But long after the people had found their beds and the missionary slept, the elder, the shaman, the hunter, and the wise woman met together and walked by the river.
“It is all a lie,” said the wise woman, “an exciting once upon a time. Even he does not believe what he says, but has said it so many times that he can’t imagine otherwise.”
“There may be a dragon,” said the shaman. “I have heard of such in my lore and craft. Such a mindless creature could damage us like the stranger says.”
“So are we to simply send him on his way and trust that we are safe?” asked the elder. “His stories give no hope and no alternative to the utter destruction of the village. If people came to believe this, they might become desperate, leave the fields for fear, and sow the seeds of our own destruction.”
“There is the problem,” said the wise woman. “It is not whether the story is true, but whether the people believe it. We must either be sure that the people do not believe him or offer some protection and hope against his prophecy.”
“Or both,” said the shaman. “Let us make sure people do not believe, but hold a talisman against the threat.”
And so they laid their plans. Little did they know that the prophet was busy helping them. When they arrived back at the council house to confront the missionary about his story early in the morning, they found the youngest daughter of the village elder wrapped in his arms, sated in love-making. They immediately drove the missionary out of the village amidst a clamor from the people for the rape of one of its daughters. He protested that the girl had come to him, but the elder and the wise woman shouted down his protests and denounced him as a liar and thief. The people picked up stones to pelt the man has he ran from the village.
The village hunter waited at the outskirts of the village and as the ragged visitor ran, the hunter took careful aim and shot the hat off his head. The missionary was too panicked to return for his precious possession and ran into the woods, never to be heard from again.
For many years the hat was kept in the council house of the village on display and in every generation a dragonslayer has been raised against the day that the dragon might come against the village to fulfill the prophecy. If it proved to be true, then one day the village would give the hat to their dragonslayer. He would face the dragon and the hat would protect him from harm. For if the dragonslayer is protected by the same feathers and skin as the dragon himself, how can he be hurt?
“AND THAT IS THE STORY of this implausible hat?” asked the melon farmer with interest.
“That’s the story, and that’s why I wear this fine feathered hat so proudly,” Steven affirmed.
“There is more truth in this story than you think,” said the older man, surprising Steven. “Tomorrow at first light, we will cross the river.”
4
The Wrong Way Home
MORNING DAWNED CLEAR and Steven was anxious to cross the river. The melon farmer tasted the air with his finger and the water with his toes and agreed that it was time to go. He instructed Steven to strip naked and put his clothing in his pack on the raft.
“I will go first, pulling the lead raft,” the farmer instructed. “You will come behind with the second raft in tow and will hold the front raft by this rope,” he continued, pointing to a short length of rope at the back of the first raft. “We should stay as close together as we can. The rafts will sway with the current and try to get away. We have to keep them under control.”
They stepped into the cold water of the river and unfastened Steven’s raft from its moorings. Steven immediately felt the current pull at the raft and sweep it downstream until it was at the end of the rope he held wrapped around one wrist and in his hand. The farmer loosened the lead raft and Steven grabbed the trailing rope as it came past him with the raft slewing in the current. The melon farmer stepped out in the lead and began towing the raft.
“Is there anything else I should be doing?” Steven called to him.
“Just tow your barge,” answered the melon farmer, “and if you are in over your head, hang onto the rope.”
The crossing was proving uneventful. Though the current pulled constantly, it was not so much that it cost Steven a great effort to guide his raft. After three hundred trudging steps along the mucky bottom of the river, the water was still only up to Steven’s knees. With the village shore now only half the distance away that it had been, Steven could see people gathering by the river and suddenly felt self-conscious about approaching completely naked.
“Melon farmer!” Steven called. “Why did we take off all our clothes? The water is only knee-de…”
Steven’s observation was cut off by a mouthful of water as he plunged over a drop-off and found no solid riverbed beneath his feet. It was only the farmer’s last-minute advice that saved Steven. He did not let go of the rope. When he surfaced, his arms were stretched out as far as he could reach with the lead raft rope in his left hand and the following rope in his right. The rafts were now fully stretched out downstream, anchored by the farmer’s strong swimming strokes on the other side of the raft to Steven’s left. After an eternity in which Steven pondered how to count the steps he was floating over, his feet scraped bottom and gradually the riverbed rose beneath them again.
Just feet from the village shore, Steven rose up in the water as it became abruptly shallower. On the shore were gathered more people than Steven had ever seen in his life, watching and cheering as the farmer victoriously towed the rafts farther in. Half a dozen men splashed into the shallows and began helping to guide the rafts up on the shore. Both the melon farmer and Steven were given blankets to wrap themselves in for warmth as the townspeople fell upon the rafts and distributed the melons. Steven’s pack was unceremoniously dumped on the ground next to him as the farmer was decked in festive clothes by gathered admirers.
Steven reached for his pack and found a foot positioned directly in front of it. He looked upward at a tall gangling figure that stood looking down at him, outlined against the sun so that Steven had to shade his eyes to make out the broad grin on the youngster’s face.
“I’m Jasper,” the young man said stretching out his hand to help Steven stand. Even when Steven was fully upright, Jasper was a head taller.
“I am Steven George,” Steven said.
“Which one?” asked Jasper.
“It’s all one,” Steven responded, surprised.
“Okay Stevengeorge,” Jasper answered. “Do you want clothes like the melon farmer, or do you just run around naked?”
“I have clothes in my pack, there,” Steven said pointing behind Jasper. Steven started pulling the clothes from his pack and putting them on. There were more people in the town than Steven had imagined were in the world. Still, Steven seemed almost invisible by comparison to the melon farmer. Only the simple young man named Jasper paid any attention to him at all.
“He’s really popular here, isn’t he?” Steven asked as he placed his hat on his head.
“He brought the melons,” Jasper said as though that said everything. Steven wondered that his role—having nearly drowned in transporting almost twice as many melons as the farmer could have alone—was not valued at all. The farmer was still surrounded by celebrating people and a large number of women and girls who seemed to hang off every part of his decorative robe. “There is a feast at high sun,” Jasper continued. “You can come, too.”
“Thank you,” Steven said.
“That’s a nice hat,” Jasper said shyly.
“Thank you again,” Steven said. “There sure are a lot of people.”
“This is nothing compared to the city I used to live in,” said Jasper. “I wish I knew where that was.”
“Really?” Steven said in disbelief. “I’ve never seen so many people. My little village is much smaller than this. I’ve seen the same one hundred seventy-four people my whole life. The melon farmer is the first person I’ve ever met who wasn’t from my village or the mountain village.”
“And now I’m the second,” Jasper said excitedly. “That’s almost like being first.” Oddly, Steven understood that logic. “Are you lost?” Jasper asked.
“Oh no,” Steven said, proudly. “I’m 99,172 steps from home. Across the river. That way,” he added pointing back across the river. “How far are you from home?”
Jasper looked stricken.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t find my way back. I’ll tell you the story if you’ll tell me about your hat,” he said excitedly. Before Steven could agree to the bargain, they were interrupted by an imperious command.
“Idiot!” yelled the officious-looking man. “Bring the farm helper to the banquet.”
“Come on,” urged Jasper. “We don’t want to be late.”
“Why does he call you idiot?” Steven asked.
“Because I’m too stupid to go home,” Jasper answered. They got to the feast and Steven was seated at a small table far from the festivities where he could see that the melon farmer was honored like a hero. But the food was good and plentiful, even though Jasper was constantly being summoned to perform some menial task. People didn’t seem to be very friendly to strangers here. Steven surreptitiously adjusted his hat on his head. People looked at him in silence, but didn’t ask about the hat or its significance. Steven was certain he could trade the story better now that he’d had experience.
After the meal, Jasper caught hold of Steven’s arm and dragged him to the head table. It was obvious that the council had been told about Steven because the mayor began immediately to address Steven.
“You bear the badge of a some kind of pilgrim on that spectacular hat,” said the mayor. “Where is your destination, pilgrim?”
“I am Steven George the Dragonslayer. My destination is wherever the dragon lives, far to the south on this side of the river. I am 99,317 steps from home, that way,” he answered.
“Ah. A dragonslayer,” the mayor nodded. “We had one of those once. He went off to slay a dragon and we never saw him again. Of course, we’ve never seen a dragon either!” He and the others laughed at this crude joke while Steven blushed. “Well, such as it is,” the man continued, “welcome to the town of Lastford. You can sleep in the barn where Jasper does and be off in the morning on your quest. There is a path a day’s journey from here that cuts south and leads into the desert. That’s as close to a route south from here as you can get. Good journey to you.”
Steven was shocked with the abruptness with which he was dismissed. In his village, visitors were so rare they would be pumped for stories until dawn.
“Don’t you want to know about my hat?” Steven asked.
“Ranihaha already told us about your hat,” the leader said. Then he and the others turned abruptly away. Even the melon farmer was too busy to spare a backward glance toward Steven and Jasper.
“Is that really Ranihaha?” Steven asked Jasper.
“Who else would it be?” Jasper responded. Steven resolved in the future to ask the names of the people he met.
Jasper showed Steven the barn where he slept and the two settled in. Then Jasper told Steven his story.
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a woodcutter who lived with his wife and three sons near a castle where he sold his wood. The sons helped in the forest with the heavy work of chopping wood, but still the family was poor and barely subsisted.
Now it happened that the first son was brave and strong. He could knock either of his brothers down in a fight. Many times the eldest brother brought home meat to the table that he had hunted, even though it was not strictly legal to hunt in the castle’s forests. There came a day when the eldest son set off to seek his fortune. He went to the castle and became a soldier. He had plenty to eat and lots of fighting to do, and he never came home again.
While this lessened the number of mouths to feed, it also increased the amount of work that the remaining brothers had to do. The second brother was very clever. Whenever he took wood to the castle to sell, he brought back more goods traded and more coins than even his father could. But he was very unhappy with the work in the forest, so in due time he set off to seek his fortune. He went to the castle and began trading and buying and selling until he had amassed great wealth and was a merchant in the city, and he never came home again.
Now there was only one son left at home and the family did not have the hunting skills of the eldest or the trading skills of the middle son to help them survive. And with two fewer workers in the family, the woodcutter and his youngest son had a hard time even cutting enough wood to to keep their family warm in the winter.
The youngest son was not good at anything. It took him a long time to cut wood. If the woodcutter sent his son on an errand it was likely that he would have to go find the boy and bring him home. The youngest son was always getting lost. But his parents loved him, and so they did their best to provide for the little family.
Seeing the strain that his father was under to make ends meet, the youngest son determined that he, too, must set off to seek his fortune. His father watched silently as the son packed his few belongings and his mother wept openly to see her last son leave. But it was a great day for the boy who had never gone farther than the castle without his parents accompanying him. Since the boy’s brothers were prosperous and lived at the castle and had no regard for their family, the youngest son decided to turn his back on the castle and seek his fortune in another part of the world, vowing to one day return to care for his aging parents.
But the world is a cruel place if you are not strong like the eldest brother or clever like the middle brother. When the youngest brother had traveled far and had come to another, even greater castle, he met a man with dark eyes who promised him wealth and good fortune. This man was both strong and clever and the boy thought he was fortunate to have found someone who could take care of him in a manner that his brothers refused to. Particularly, the man taught the boy how to find his way in the city, which was no small task. He did this by sending the boy on errands late at night.
“Boy,” he would say, “I have a need for silver candlesticks for my dining table. I saw a pair at Lord Vesper’s home. Be a good boy and run over to pick them up for me. The Vespers have gone hunting for a season and will not be home, so just step in and pick them up for me and hurry back here.” And the boy would run the errand.
The boy did not understand until “the awful night” that his friend and protector was a thief. On that night he was collecting a matched set of dueling swords from the home of the Merchant Gudby when the merchant unexpectedly returned early from his journey. The merchant called for soldiers and the boy ran for his life. The careful training that his one-time friend had given him was only for a certain part of town, and when the boy’s panicked footsteps took him into a different part town, he was instantly lost.
Thus, cowering in an alley where rats fought over scraps of food, the boy determined to leave the city and return to his parents. He would learn the paths in the woods and become a good woodcutter like his father, for surely that was his true fortune.
But lost is lost. The boy wandered alone until time had no meaning and place was defined only by his own two feet. He became a man, but still was neither clever nor strong. Eventually he wandered into the last town on earth and, unable to find his home, decided to stay there forever.
“AND THAT IS HOW you came to be here?” Steven asked.
“That town is this town, and I am that boy,” Jasper answered.
Steven was moved by the boy’s story. His own small adventure so far was nothing compared to the experience and story of Jasper. The poor village idiot’s tale had awoken a pang of loneliness and longing for his own home. He begged that they wait until evening before he told the story of his hat, and Jasper agreed to spend the afternoon seeking directions for Steven’s quest, for no one yet had been able to tell him how many steps it was from the town of Lastford to the road that would take him south to the dragon.
5
The Too-Clever Maiden
DIRECTIONS WERE easy to come by, but difficult to follow. Each person Jasper took Steven to see had an idea of where the road south to the dragon lay.
“Well, now,” said one grizzled old farmer, pointing, “you want to follow the main road out thet way. You don’t want to follow any of the other roads because they don’t lead anywhere. Thet one, for example, just goes out to Maggar’s place and it don’t go no further. Thet one over thar, it just go to… well, I don’t rightly know. En’t nobody goes thet way.”
“No one travels south,” said a merchant. “There is nothing but desert on one side and marshland on the other forever. If you take the main road you have to go round the mountains, but it is civilized. I’m sure you can find something useful to do while you are traveling.”
“You want to take the second branching to the right to go around the south side of the mountains,” said a musician. “The first road to the right just goes out into the desert and just vanishes. I knew a minstrel who went that way once and was never heard from again. His lute showed up in a secondhand shop out in Highford.”
“Just follow the main road out a day and look for a big tree with a wasp-nest in a fork of the branches,” said a hunter. “Go toward the morning sun from there until it is high in the sky. Then listen for the sound of a brook and follow it downstream to where the deer come for salt. Just on the other side of the stream is the path that becomes a wagon trail that leads back along the river south.”
Steven was about to give up in despair when Jasper took him to see an old lady in a hut at the edge of town. Her hut was tiny and filled with smoke, choking Steven as he entered. But strangely, this little hovel reminded him more of home than anything in the town of Lastford. And the old woman reminded him pleasantly of the village wise woman back home.
“And what makes you think it is a road that will lead you to the dragon, dragonslayer?” she asked. “It is not a road, but your destiny that leads you there. So follow what way you will, you cannot help but find your dragon.” She laughed lowly and Steven was emboldened to ask further.
“Do you have any herbs to help me on my way?” he asked, remembering the packet the village wise woman had given him.
“Herbs?” she cackled. “You want herbs? You have nothing to trade for herbs.” Steven was about to offer to trade a story, but he remembered just in time that he had not yet paid Jasper and it would be unfair to offer the story to the old woman. But she was not done yet. “You need your defenses strengthened. Give me your hat.” Steven was truly taken aback. He could not part with the implausible hat just for a handful of herbs. “I’m going to give it back,” said the old woman. “Come, now; have no fear.”
Reluctantly, Steven gave the old woman his hat and she examined it carefully. She lit a small pot of incense and held the hat out in the smoke, bathing it thoroughly in the pungent fumes. She chanted and turned it, waved it and cradled it. She placed it on her own head and walked three times around the hut. Then she slowly took it off and fastened a small piece of bone to the snakeskin that bound the feathers to the sheepskin hat.
“There,” she said handing it back to him. “Even a dragon hunter should have music when he travels. That’s the best I can do. Good hunting, dragonslayer. Fare you well.” With that she pointed to the door and Steven emerged from the hut to find Jasper still waiting for him.
After a meal of scraps from the feast earlier in the day, Steven finally settled down in the barn to tell Jasper his story.
ONCE UPON A TIME, long ago and at least a hundred thousand steps away, there lived a young maiden who was very clever at getting her way in all that she wanted. She had two elder sisters who were always offered first choice of whatever came into their parents’ home. If it was cloth for a dress, the oldest took the smoothest cloth, then the middle daughter took the brightest cloth, and then the youngest got what was left. When food was served at the table, the eldest took the tastiest portion, the middle took the largest portion, and the youngest got what was left. Faced with this situation from a very young age, the youngest found that her foolish sisters were easily manipulated. The youngest would immediately go to the coarsest fabric and exclaim over how the light shone from its beautiful contours. The eldest daughter would immediately snatch up the cloth as her own. Then the youngest would exclaim over the beautiful colors of the dullest cloth and the middle sister would snatch it up. That would leave the poor youngest child with the smoothest and most colorful cloth for her dresses.
When the girls came to be of marriageable age, the youngest decided she would have to be clever indeed to get what she wanted, for of course the eldest daughter wanted the richest man in the village, the middle daughter wanted the most handsome man in the village, and no one really cared what the youngest daughter wanted.
The youngest daughter had set her heart on the son of the elder of the neighboring village. He was rich, strong, handsome, and powerful. Both of her elder sisters had cast a longing eye on this young prince. And so it was that the youngest set about her plan.
She sat one day at the village well gazing down into its depths, sighing softly to herself as she filled her water jar. The village wise woman came to sit by her and asked, “Child, why do you sit and sigh as you draw your water? What is it you see?”
The maiden smiled to herself and said, “I see a stranger coming to our village. He is handsome and rich and he has eyes only for me. He will take me far away where I will live in a castle surrounded by servants who draw my water for me, and maids who sew my clothes.”
Now the village wise woman was not called a wise woman for naught. She saw through the clever maiden’s ruse at once, but she decided that the girl’s tricks must be paid for. “It is a true seeing,” declared the wise woman. “The girl is a prophetess. I have seen visions of this stranger from afar in my dreams as well. We should be ready for his appearance.”
The clever maiden was delighted with this result, for her sisters had abandoned all thought of the young prince from the neighboring village. Their thoughts were consumed by the tall dark stranger, rich and handsome, who would come to sweep them up to his castle far away. But the wise woman arranged a trick that would forever silence the clever maiden.
One day in the spring when all things were bursting into flower and the new grain was peeping through the soil, a child ran to the village declaring a stranger had been seen in the hills heading their direction. The three sisters were atwitter with excitement. It was much to their surprise that they were commanded to stay at home when the stranger arrived in the village. They saw him only from a distance. And from that distance he appeared very powerful. He spoke to their father, the village elder and the village prepared a feast in his honor that night. But still, the elder would not let his daughters attend. At long last, the first daughter prevailed upon her father to let her go to the feast because she was of age and should be part of the village councils. Her father relented and granted her permission to go. The second daughter prevailed upon her father to let her serve him at his table. It was only right that the elder’s daughter be the one to bring food to the elder’s table. At long last the second daughter won her father’s permission to attend.
But no matter what the youngest daughter said, because of the prophecy that she had, herself proclaimed to the wise woman, the elder was loathe to let her see the stranger and she was commanded to stay at home.
Now when the eldest and the middle daughter got to the feast, they were not encumbered by their sister’s flatteries, and discovered quickly for themselves that the stranger was an old man, neither rich nor handsome and they loathed him. But at the coaching of the wise woman, they got home late that night and told their sister quite the opposite.
“I am in love,” said the eldest. “He is rich beyond compare. He is a powerful prince among men. There is no doubt my father will arrange our marriage in the morning.” She giggled to herself and the youngest despaired that her vision was true.
“I am much more in love than you,” said the middle sister. “He is the most handsome man in the world. His wealth would mean nothing to me for there are stars shining in his eyes and the sun is in his smile.” She too giggled and now the youngest truly despaired of having her prince taken away from her. All thoughts of the neighboring village elder’s son were driven from her mind and she was consumed by jealousy for her sisters.
Late that night she hatched a plot to circumvent the machinations of her sisters and claim the stranger for herself. When her sisters were asleep and softly snoring, the youngest daughter slipped out of the house and made her way through the shadows to the council house where the stranger slept on a pallet near the fire. She quietly slipped beneath the blankets as he slept and in the darkness enticed him to lie with her. Then she fell asleep in his arms.
In the morning, when the elder, the wise woman, and the shaman came to the council house to address the stranger, they found the elder’s youngest daughter in his arms. She, awaking to find that her rich, handsome young prince was in fact a disgusting, old, and impoverished wanderer, immediately accused him of seduction and rape while he stuttered his denials. He fled from the village for his life.
The clever maiden, for her part, discovered among the bed clothes this remarkable hat. Realizing that she had been duped by her sisters and that now she bore a child no man would claim, she hid the hat away as her son’s only inheritance.
“THAT IS HOW you got this incredible hat?” asked Jasper.
“That is how it happened,” affirmed Steven. “That hat has been passed down through the ages and it is my good fortune to possess it now.”
“I can see the truth in your story,” said the simple-minded man. “Tomorrow I will accompany you on your journey to find the dragon. Perhaps as we travel, we will come upon my home.”
6
How to Slay a Dragon
BY THE FIRST LIGHT OF DAWN, Steven was up with his bedroll packed and his staff in his hand. Jasper arose sleepily and slowly.
“Do we have to leave already?” he said plaintively. “It’s hardly morning.”
“You don’t have to leave, my friend,” said Steven, “but I want to be on the road and searching for the dragon.”
“Can you wait while I get ready?” Jasper asked. Reluctantly, Steven agreed, but couldn’t help pacing back and forth in impatience. 103,320. 103,321. 103,322. Steven had added three hundred thirty-three steps before Jasper picked up a small parcel and slung it over his shoulder.
“Is that all?” Steven asked, in disbelief.
“I don’t have much,” said Jasper. “I’ve never really needed anything that people didn’t just give me.”
Steven shrugged and the two headed out of Lastford on the main road. The skies were gray and there was a hint of moisture in the air. Steven was glad for the warm wool of his walking shirt as he picked up his pace to the comfortable one hundred steps per minute that meant he was on a smooth and secure path.
Jasper lagged behind and then jogged to catch up. He talked to Steven at a rapid pace for several minutes and then gradually fell behind again. Jogging to catch up again, he asked breathlessly, “Why do you walk so fast? I can hardly keep up. Can’t you slow down a little?”
To Steven, the pace was not anything like the one hundred twenty steps per minute that he considered a hard walk. Nonetheless, he tried to moderate his pace to match Jasper, but kept gradually drawing ahead and Jasper would jog to catch up and complain that Steven was walking too fast.
Jasper spent most of the time talking as fast as they were walking, asking questions but seldom waiting for an answer. But one question he asked set Steven thinking, and lost in thought he was a great deal ahead of Jasper when the boy ran to catch up again.
“How are you going to kill the dragon?” Jasper had asked.
Now that was a good question. In fact, it was a question he had asked himself and others many times. The hunter had taught him to set traps and to shoot the bow and arrow when he was still a youngster. Since then he had assumed that he would have to make a bow and arrow of his own and that he would shoot the dragon in one of the two vital spots the hunter had described for most animals: the neck just behind the back of the skull, or the heart. Now the neck of a dragon could be armored. In that case he would have to shoot for the heart. Steven was not precisely certain where the heart was, not being at all certain what a dragon looked like. So he had asked many people over the years how they thought he would kill the dragon.
“Mother, mother,” he had pestered her when he was still tagging along at her heels. “How will I kill the dragon?”
“Well,” she had said, “you will be clever and surprise it.”
“But how will I kill it?”
“Well, perhaps you will stab it?” The young Steven considered this for a moment. To stab the creature he would need to have a knife, and those were strictly forbidden.
“But I’m too little to have a knife. You said,” he complained. “How can I kill it without a knife?”
“Well, you aren’t too little to hit it with a stone,” she had replied. Steven thought some more.
“But what if it is really, really big?” His exasperated mother was at her wits’ end trying to answer the question.
“Steven, I don’t know how you will kill the dragon,” she had said in irritation. “I don’t even know what a dragon looks like. Perhaps you are a kind of poisonous animal and when the dragon eats you he will die of a stomachache.”
That had served to silence Steven as he considered for the first time that slaying the dragon might not mean that he would return home victorious. His mission in life might, in fact, cost him his life.
Now and then, when a gust of wind blew up, Steven could hear the bone in his hatband make a whistling noise. It was not unpleasant. As he walked with or in front of Jasper, tuning out the boy’s chatter and complaining, he focused on counting his steps and thinking about how to kill the dragon. 109,682. 109,683.
He had studied herbology with the wise woman. He had studied ritual magic with the shaman. He had studied tracking with the hunter. He had even studied storytelling with the teacher and politics with the elder. He had many skills, but still had no real understanding of what a dragon was and how it should be speedily dispatched. He imagined it to be a winged serpent that breathed fire. His first encounter with a winged serpent, however, had been a snake and a duck locked in mortal combat. What part of a snake would be considered its neck, he wondered. How could I get close enough to poison the dragon without being eaten? What magic ritual might I invent to immobilize the dragon as I slay it? How can I ever fulfill my destiny and return to my little village a hero?