An Anthem of Wings

There weren't always dragons in the valley. It wasn't their home, but they had been driven from so many places, so many other homes, the valley was all they had left. Dex knew the stories by heart. His Granddad had told them to him since the age he could walk, and when Granddad passed beyond, Granny had told them to him on the nights he was restless and couldn't settle to sleep. He remembered them both telling him the stories as he stood before his Granny's freshly dug grave.

The first dragons were born in the Dark places between the fire of the stars, born out of drifting dreams and jagged nightmares from the mortals slumbering, huddling on the rocks that spun around those stars. They came to live on the moon, our moon, bright and swollen, filling up much of the night sky with its ghost-light, craters and mountains all named for people and gods long dead.

Dex lifted Granny's shroud-wrapped body effortlessly. The last few years had worn on his grandmother like a millstone, taken a vital, boisterous, intelligent woman and winnowed her away to a shadow, a breathing ghost. He placed her carefully in the grave. He'd picked a bunch of Widow's Veils off the hillside near the farmhouse. Granny had always loved the black and purple wildflowers, and Dex decided to lay some to rest with her. She looked so small in the grave, next to the marker stone for Granddad.

Dex stood there for a time, lost in her life, in the tangle of it with his own—the sound of her singing as she cooked before the hearth, her laughter when he had been three and the chickens had chased him around the yard. Her playing the guitar Granddad had made for her while Granddad played his pipes. The sound of the old clan songs had rolled across the valley. “Tell me about our clan,” he asked them.

“In time,” Granddad had said with a smile and a wink. “It's a long story—”

“Are there battles, and knights, and dragons?”

“Oh,” Granddad acted like he was trying to remember, “One or two, I think. Maybe a scuffle, some harsh words, and a lizard?” Granny had laughed at that. “I know that there's a lot of boring stuff between the good parts. But enough of all that, m'boy! Tonight is for music, for song!” The music filled his young ears, filled his mind and heart with legends and glory, happiness and life. It was as if the whole world was singing along with them, as if the stars were dancing in the heavens to their tune. It was what Dex thought of when he thought of happiness, of family, of magic.

He heard the music fade inside him, inside the museum of memory, then silence and the grave. “Thank you,” Dex said to both of them. He took up Granny's guitar, leaning against the shade tree, which guarded their graves. The instrument felt warm and smooth, like a part of him. He had learned from Granny how to play it so long ago, Granddad's pipes too. The pipes sat beside the guitar. He'd wanted to bury the pipes with Granddad, all those years ago, but Granny had said no.

“He'd want you to have them, Dex,” she said. “So you could come and visit him and play him some songs. He was so proud of your playing, so proud of the man you've grown into. I am too, dear boy.” They'd played together for Granddad that day, the old song for a dear one passing on. His tears wet his face, but all his sorrow passed through his breath, through the pipes and across the valley.

The dragons had lived peacefully in the shadows of the great lunar mountains, in the caves within the silent craters, there content to slumber, to feed off the dreams of all that lived below them on the world called Joro, Dex's home, for a very, very long time.

The oldest of them fashioned eggs when they had fed long enough, when their time was close to its end. Yes, his grandparents had told young Dex, even dragons die, everything dies. That was a lesson Dex had learned very early in life. Knowing that even the greatest of beings held within themselves the seeds of their own ending gave him a strange comfort, a sense of kinship, as a boy. It set the spin of the world right, somehow. His story was tied to the dragon's story, even if only in that one unavoidable detail.

Those dragon eggs, glowing with dream-light, split open after long ages had passed on Joro, after their creators had faded to dust, to memory and myth. The Second Brood, young and fierce, and full of all the knowledge of the First Brood, took their place upon the moon. This cycle would have gone on again and again, if not for the Sel. The Sel ruined everything.

The Sel came from the stars, like the dragons, but there the comparison ended. They were small, at least compared to the dragons, more like men, except tall and gaunt and painfully, achingly beautiful with a fairness matched only by their alien coldness and cruelty. It was said they wore elegant, silvered masks and helms so that their perfection would not drive men mad. Dex had never met a Sel, at least not that he remembered, but they were the reason he grew up with Granny and Granddad, not his parents.

First, the Sel drove the dragons from the moon. They pierced their immutable scales with silver fire, destroyed their hatcheries—wiping out the Third Brood before they could even be born. The backlash of the Sel's genocide crashed like storm waves upon the sleeping minds of the Dreamers all across the world.

The dragons fought fiercely to defend their children, their home, but they were too few, and the Sel had stolen magic from a thousand, thousand conquered peoples all across the stars. In the end, the few remaining dragons fled their cool, silent home above for the warmth and life of Joro, below. The Sel, victorious masters of the moon, erected their great lunar palaces across its face and looked down upon the people of Joro, like cold, unforgiving gods.

Dex played Granny's favorite song, the first one she taught him. He put everything into it. His technique was flawless—his teacher deserved nothing less—and like Granny taught him, he made it his own song too. “Music's something old and remembered,” she said, “that's for sure, but it's always new too, it has to be, Dex. You'll play a song different than me, or Granddad. You can't help but. Music's fire. It always fire, but it's never, ever the same fire, the same flicker.”

Dex's voice and the music drifted across the valley she had loved so much. He waited until the last chord faded, and he gently placed the guitar back against the guardian tree and took up the shovel. When his labor was done, he knelt and regarded the two graves, the two simple marker stones that memorialized such extraordinary lives.

He felt a weight settle over him. He didn't want to move; he didn't want to ever move again from this spot, from them. Hunger tugged at his belly. He told it to shut up. The sun kept moving, even if he didn't want to. Eventually, he took up vigil under the shade tree and played Granny's—no, now his—guitar and his pipes.

He started out playing the old songs he knew they loved, the ones he was as comfortable with as well-worn leather, the old clan songs, but, eventually, as the sun dipped, he messed about with the songs he'd been working on for a while, his own songs. As the sky started to darken and he began to feel played out, a terrible thought came to him. He had the feeling you get when you recall a task you needed to do desperately and had somehow forgotten. He didn't think he knew all the stories of the clan, of his clan, of Granny and Granddad's clan. They had told him plenty over his life, so many stories, so many legends and heroes and villains and myths. He knew histories and genealogies and lore, but…. Every time Granny or Granddad had dismissed a question, had vaguely referenced some other story, some other piece of the whole quilt and had said, “That's for another time...” He suddenly felt a panic and a dread well up in him, like he had failed them in some way. No, not just them, the clan. He stood up, dusting off the seat of his pants, and slung the guitar and pipes by their straps. It was early evening now, and the stars were just starting to appear. The huge moon was rising like a ghost continent, just now crowning at the edges of the valley's highest peaks, beginning its nightly dominance of most of the sky.

“I have to go now,” he said to the only parents he had ever known. “I'll be back. I love you. Rest.” He made his way back to the farmhouse and listened to the night songs of the insects all the way home.

****

Dex kept tending the farm like he had done since Granddad had passed and Granny had grown too weak to leave her bed. It was busy work, tasks he knew how to do well. It also left him too tired most days to think of much else. However, the nagging feeling of the gaps in his knowledge of the family history began to return and grow in him.

There were other members of his family's clan living in the valley. Hodder lived with his wife, Leigh, and their boys not too far away. He wasn't sure exactly how they were related to him, Granny, and Granddad, but he knew they were. They'd often arrive in a cart, drawn by a sweet old bay horse, and stay the night, trading baked goods and flour for chickens, milk, or fruit and vegetables.

Dex had a lot of good memories of those visits and the sweet buns Leigh made and brought with them to the farmhouse on the feast days of the equinoxes. They didn't play music, but they loved to listen. On the feast days, Granddad would borrow Hodder's old Da's fiddle and play it hard and fast. Sometimes, other valley folks would come, too, bringing food, fireworks, and jugs of goldberry wine they'd cool in the creek. They'd dance jigs and reels, get good and drunk, listen to Granny's stories, and toast the old gods of the woods, mountains, and streams.

Dex decided to walk to Hodder's and ask about the clan, what the miller knew and what he could pass along. It took the better part of the day to get there, and he was tired and thirsty by the time he arrived, with a sack of potatoes, carrots, and beets on his back.

“Bless my soul,” Hodder said, pushing up his straw hat and grinning with the few teeth he had left, “How are you, boy? How's your dear Granny getting along?” Dex dropped the sack and hugged the old man, who slapped him hard on the back several times.

“Good to see you, Hod,” he said. “I got some sad news. Granny passed a while back. It's one of the reasons I came to see you and Leigh.”

Hodder sighed, “I'm sorry to hear it, son. She was a fine lady, a fine lady. How are you getting along over there all alone?”

Dex shrugged. He didn't know what else to do. “Brought you a few things,” he said. “Hope you don't mind if I stay the night before heading back.”

“I insist on it,” he said, hefting the sack of gifts. “Come on, Leigh made stew. My eldest boy shot a Grimm, and we were able to get some good meat off it before it evaporated.” Hodder led him toward the house that sat back a ways from the mill. “And I think I have a spot of Frost Ale left to toast the memory of your dear Grandma.”

The meal, the ale, and the company were all first rate. Hodder and Leigh's boys had grown tall and strong. One resembled his mother more, the other his dad. The eldest, Nic, told of tracking and shooting the Grimm with Hodder's old musket. The younger, Tim, shared the stories of his adventures going with Hodder to the big town over the mountain near Sorret, talking rapidly of seeing the Men Who Lived Under the Mountain there, and a real Smoke Cat, in a glass cage. Leigh, a wonderful lady, made over Dex, making sure he had two big bowls of the stew and half a loaf of her bread, before she brought out the sweet buns that instantly turned him back into a seven-year-old boy again. He devoured three of them.

After everyone else had retired for the night, Dex finally sat with Hodder before the hearth and shared the last of the winter's ale and a pipe of good tobacco Hodder had traded for with a fellow from a different clan. Dex explained his concern about the clan, its history, and the gaps in his knowledge of it. Hodder listened and nodded, letting the boy have his say. Finally, the old man spoke. “Dexter, m'boy, I can assure you, you know more stories about our family, about the clan, than anyone alive. Your grandparents saw to that. It was their passion, and it was their duty too. They prepared you as best they could. I'm sure of that.”

“Prepared?”

“Yep,” Hodder stood with a soft groan and made his way to the hearth. “You know the way clans work, right, son? Everybody's got a place, got a job. They teach their kids to do it, to carry on, and they teach their kids, and so it goes. It's how things get done, how things keep moving along.”

He reached up on the hearth and pulled forward an old, metal box and fished a key off a chain around his neck from under his tunic. “Your folks were supposed to learn from your Granny and granddad—their parents—and then one day, you would have learned from them, but the void-damned Sel... well, anyway. They taught you, and I know you will do a job that would make them both proud.”

“I don't understand,” Dex said. I'm supposed to be a farmer? Raise chickens and cows? There's lots of those in our clan, in the valley.”

Hodder chuckled and shook his head as he slipped the old key into the lock of the box and tugged the lid open. “Dexter, your grandfather and grandmother weren't no farmers...well, they were, and damn good ones, too, but that wasn't their place in our clan. They were the seanchaí, son—the storytellers, the music-makers, the ones that kept the lore, the history, alive. Now, you are the seanchaí. It's your duty now.”

“Hodder,” Dex stood without even realizing he was doing it, “I can't...I mean, I came here to ask you about all the things I don't know about the clan! How can I be the...”

“Seanchaí,” the old man said as he took a small paper packet out of the box. “Dex, look, I couldn't tell you. I'm a miller. My da was a miller and my grandda was a miller. I mill. All I know for sure is that your grandparents were good people, and they loved you more than anything in this world. You're ready.” Hodder offered the packet to Dex. “Well, now you're ready. Here.”

“What...what's this?”

“A while after your Granddad passed, your Granny gave this to me and told me to give it to you after her passing. She said you'd need it. So, here you are.” Dex took the packet and saw his name on it, written in Granny's thin, elegant cursive. Hodder placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. “I'll leave you to it. Your bed's made up in the usual room for you. We'll talk at breakfast. Goodnight, Dex.”

Dex was alone with the hearth and the snap and crack of the fire. He sat down and regarded the packet. After a time, he carefully opened it. A thin, flat rock, like a worry stone, dropped into his hands from the package. He didn't recognize the stone. It was mostly gray with dull, red mottling. He placed it on his knee and unfolded the paper inside the packet. It was a note written by Granny:

Dearest Dex,

I hope you'll forgive me and Granddad for this. All I can say in our defense is that we love you so very much that we didn't have the heart to bring any more sadness or trouble into your life. For one as young as you, you've had more than your measure. I know it’s not a good enough excuse, but it's all I can offer, and it is the truth.

This should have fallen to your father, but he died while still mastering the craft. Please don't think of this as speaking ill of him, but you took to it as easy as breathing, and he, rest his soul, struggled his whole life. We loved him and your mother, and the only consolation in their deaths was your survival. You were the greatest gift we ever received, our greatest joy.

Well, let's get to it then. Dex, you are now the clan seanchaí. All the songs, all the tales, they are in your care now. Hold them in your heart with the greatest of respect and pride. Teach them to your children. Teach them this next part, too, the hardest part. I pray you are strong enough to give them what they need to carry this burden and this knowledge all their days. In our way, Granddad and I did try to prepare you. I hope that in the times to come, you remember your grandfather's stories and my songs. There is truth in them, and magic, of a sort. We often hide wisdom and hard truth in the most seemingly frivolous of wrappers, so that it may be kinder to the recipient in its unveiling. That was our hope for you. Remember what we told you. All you need is there, except for this last bit that we give you now. I'm sorry, Dex. I wish it didn't have to fall to you.

The stone is a Kairn Stone. It will lead you to a specific place far across the valley, like a compass. It will take you farther than you have ever traveled before in your life. This is the stone that has led the seanchaí of our clan to the final secret of our blood, the greatest and the most terrible of secrets, since the world was young, and the dragons first fell to the valley. I carried this stone when I first took up the mantle of seanchaí from my father. It is the stone you will hand to your child when your days have grown short.

Destroy this letter. None but the lore keeper may know of this secret's existence, and you must know it, Dex, if you are to do your job. I wish there was another way. There isn't.

We love you. We believe in you, and I know you will pass through this trial and become the greatest seanchaí our clan has ever known. Trust in the music, trust in the words, but above all else, trust in yourself. We do. We always have.

Love always,

Granny

Dex exhaled and leaned back in his chair. He read the letter again, and then a third time. He picked up the stone and ran his fingers over it. It told him nothing.

Finally, he stood, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it into the fire. He watched the bluish smoke curl up the chimney as he confirmed the paper had been completely devoured by the flame. He tucked the Kairn Stone into his pants pocket and retired for the night.

****

“You want to do what?” Hodder asked him as he helped the miller feed the horses in the stable.

“I want to sell you the farm,” Dex said. “Well, mostly, anyway.”

“Are you joshing about? What did that paper tell you, son?”

“I have to go away for a bit,” Dex said. “I need someone to tend the farm; your boys can do it. I'm quite sure they can. I've been doing it alone for years.”

“I could just have them do that for a bit, Dex. You don't have to sell the place to me. We'd be happy to help out. And where do you have to go, all of a sudden? I know. Can't say, right?”

Dex smiled. “This way's better. I don't have any idea how long this will take. Please, Hod. Take it. I'll even take payment if it will make you feel better.”

“Payment? I don't have that kind of...”

“Your fiddle,” Dex said. “All I want, if you'll part with it. And I can come back whenever I want to visit Granny and Granddad, and you all, of course.” The old miller thought for moment and then grinned his gap-filled smile.

“You drive a hard bargain, boy,” he said. “Fair deal.” He spit in his palm and offered it to Dex. Dex did the same, and they shook on it.

“I have to grab a few odds and ends from the old place, he said. “I'll see you in a day or two?”

Hodder nodded and waived to the boy as Dex started back to the farm.

****

He stood under the shade tree, in front of the markers. Already, grass was growing on Granny's grave, and a few Widow's Veils, too. That made him happy. He had the guitar in the canvas sack Granddad had made for it, slung over his back. A small pack with a few things in it he might need, and a bedroll strapped to the bottom of it, was slung beside the guitar. Granddad's pipes and the fiddle were in that pack. Granddad's musket was slung over his shoulder, and the bag with shot and the powder horn were at his belt. He clenched the Kairn Stone in one hand and Granny's old walking stick in the other.

“I'm going now,” he said. “I'll make you both proud, and I promise I'll come back and tell you all about it.” He took his first step away from the only home he had ever known, then another. He opened his hand to regard the stone resting in his palm and whistled a tune that they had taught him. Ahead of him, the distant, blued mountains of the valley rose up, jagged and so far away, but getting closer all the time.