Chronicles of the Golden Dragon

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. However, after heavy rainfalls, the raging river that bisected the jungle would surge up its banks, and huge blue ones, covered snout-to-tail in lapis-lazuli scales that glimmered with an oily sheen, would fly in from the north and congregate at the rusting ruins perched over the roiling torrent. When the river ran swiftly enough the ancient structure would glow with mysterious lights and hum and crackle from within. This was clearly what drew the dragons, and so Zoe’s people were fearful of storms. When the ruins glowed, The Mouth of the Mountain, deep within the cave they called home, would open and lightning-like arcs in its maw would spark over the bones of all those who had been foolish enough to venture within.

A lush jungle filled the valley, its verdantcy petering out to slate gray as the flora stretched until it could find no more nourishment up the flinty mountainsides. Zoe’s tribe’s coming-of-age ceremony required taking one’s cat and summiting the peak above their cave, then speaking of what you had seen to The Mouth of the Mountain. It was hoped that this might somehow appease It and abate the anger It displayed when awakened.

Zoe had told The Mouth that looking down from atop the wind-whipped, icy outcropping, the valley had looked small, like a bowl of salad.

Later she would see that from far, far above, the jungle appeared as a viridescent gem set into a jagged sea of mountains, but at the time, with no concept of gems or the sea, she had pet Zoltan, his jet-black head poking from beneath her furs and said it looked like a salad. Later she repeated this to The Mouth of the Mountain while Zoltan licked melting frost from his chest.

The cave the tribe lived in was not natural, having been dug out of the stone by the same giants who had constructed the ruins long ago. Whether these were the same giants as the dragon-riders sometimes seen flying far overhead was not known. Living giants had entered the valley only once in memory, when Zoe’s mother, Zelda, was a child.

She said the dragon-riders were twice as tall as anyone in the tribe, just the right height to fit the rooms and passageways of the ruins or through The Mouth of The Mountain. Everyone present had gathered at the cave’s entrance when three saddled silver dragons, gleaming in the bright sunlight, descended to the ruins by the river, which was at its most placid that day, but still a boiling rush full of chaotic eddies and invisible, deadly currents.

The giants had briefly inspected the rusting structures and machinery before rising up and flying toward the cave. It had been impossible to determine much of the riders, as they were clad head-to-toe in sterling armor that nearly matched the brilliance of their mounts in magnificence. So fierce was the wind from the dragons’ wing beats that it shook unripe fruits from the trees that made up the tribe’s primitive efforts at agriculture beneath the cave.

Young Zelda had developed a taste for the small, tart apples harvested from the ground that season. Ever-after she called them “dragon apples,” and each year when Zoe was little, her mother would sneak to the meager orchard with her huge orange cat, Hamish, and daughter in tow. They’d pilfer as many of the sour, little fruits as they could carry before stealing away into the jungle to dip them in honey and talk of the dragon-riders as the cores collected at their feet while Hamish hunted in the jungle nearby.

Isolated for so long, the tribe had little concept of true conflict. Their legends told of a time when they were giants themselves, riding lions and tigers across a vast, wide-open landscape. Stories of great hunts abounded, with huge cats taking down enough massive wildebeests that the tribe and their cats could feast for days. Zoe was named after the greatest heroine of legend, who rode a panther named Zoltan in many skirmishes with wolf packs and even one epic encounter with a dragon.

People had scoffed when, as a child, Zoe had plucked a black kitten from a litter and named him “Zoltan.” “The girl listens to too many stories,” people had said, “She’ll break her heart looking for adventure in this valley.”

The stories Zoe loved so much disagreed as to whether or not the people were small when they arrived in the valley, having survived a long journey on the terrible river in an escape from some calamity lost to memory. That they had brought small cats with them was known to be fact. They had come to rely on their feline companions the same way their ancestors had, to hunt for them.

The tribe’s tales told of tortoises and hares; of wildebeests and wolves; of bears and bison, but the valley was populated by only a handful of species. Zoe’s people and foxes were the only predators who competed for mice and chipmunks in the undergrowth while the sloths above paid no mind to anything below. There were fish in the oily pond at the center of the bowl-shaped valley, but they were pale things with clouded eyes and metallic tasting, mushy flesh that even the foxes avoided.

Water from the pond had a bitter tang, and so the tribe gathered buckets from the river, despite the danger. No part of the valley was considered forbidden, but it was seen as unnecessarily risky to venture too close to the raging waters without reason, and downright foolish to go to the ruins. Despite this, Zoe went there often. Whatever made the place hum and crackle also warmed its innards, most of which were dank and prone to flooding. The parts that stayed dry, however, were home to innumerable rodents and Zoe would often take Zoltan there to hunt. She stuck to the upper levels because it was known that deeper down there were white mice, believed by the tribe to be the illest of omens.

Inside the ruins were many impassible doors, similar to The Mouth of the Mountain. Zoe’s mother would be horrified to know that twice she had lingered long enough while hunting during a rainstorm to see them light up, though they did not open. The first time, she’d heard thunder, followed by the river growing louder and was about to gather Zoltan and leave when a low hum had started deep beneath her in the structure.

She had crouched low in fear, refusing to leave without her cat, as the hum built in intensity. Lights overhead and on the doors flickered to life, bathing Zoe in an unnatural glow. Zoltan had come tearing down the hallway, all his fur standing on end. Zoe realized she could feel something in the air. Strands of her hair floated upwards at the whim of whatever force was vibrating the walls. There was a bad taste in her mouth and she was terrified, but secretly relished every moment of it and remained as long as she could without arousing suspicion. The excitement of the experience kept drawing her back.

The ruins offered the only excitement in the valley. Even the rope bridge that had once crossed the span of the river was gone, torn out by the shackled blue dragon the first time it had arrived. Left to their own devices the dragons that came had almost always been peaceful. Disagreements would occasionally break out between them, ending in blasts of lightning breathed at each-other in booming yellow arcs. This seemed to be mostly for show as their cerulean hides were immune to the effects of electricity.

The shackled one was fierce and unpredictable, often roaring and hissing sparks at the others. The first time it had come, before it had even alit, it ripped the bridge from its moorings and dropped it into the river. Zoe had once seen it blast a sloth that had ventured too close, leaving its smoldering corpse still clinging to a branch. She couldn’t imagine anyone riding such a creature, and as she drifted off to sleep often wondered who had chained the thing and whether it had been so terribly angry before.

It seemed pointless to rebuild the bridge if such a thing aroused a dragon’s ire, but Zoe still brought it up at every meeting of the tribe. “There is nothing we need on the far side of the river,” she had been consistently told, which was true. However, there was something on the far side of the river that Zoe wanted. Two years after the shackled blue dragon came to the valley a red one had arrived one day. A storm had passed through and just as the rains ceased the blues arrived and began snuffling about the ruins.

Shortly thereafter a shadow had passed over the cave entrance as a massive red dragon flew into the valley. The shackled blue saw it first and screeched out a warning, sending the group into flight, but the red caught up to the slowest one and blasted it with a gout of flame, sending it crashing into the jungle on the far side of the river.

When the red dragon was done feasting it had risen into the air and shaken cobalt blood from its head and wings in a rain that glimmered in the sun like sapphires. Smoke had risen from where the blue had fallen for days, and the others of its group let three storms pass before returning. Sometimes Zoe would go to the part of the cave where the tribe’s long history was painted on the wall and make her way from The Arrival to The Red Dragon, wondering at how she had only existed for the most very recent part of the story and what would next happen to be significant enough to warrant an entry.

Zoe knew what she wanted to happen next. She wanted to find a way across the river and get to the blue dragon’s remains. With no sense of conflict and no need to hunt, the tribe had no weapons, merely tools, but Zoe could think of a dozen uses for a dragon fang or rib. It was the scales she wanted most, though. She had seen the way the beasts blasted each other with lightning that had no effect on their hides and began wondering if a coat made of dragonscale might protect from the fury within The Mouth of the Mountain.

She had spoken of this to no one but Zoltan, as she knew the whole notion would be regarded as foolish. The seemingly unarguable point made by the tribe every time Zoe started asking questions about the bridge or the ruins or The Mouth was, “We have everything we need, there’s no point in risking anyone.” By now she knew better than to bring up Zachariah.

Zachariah had been on the far side of the river the day the dragon had torn out the bridge. Initially there had been some talk of ropes and rescue, but ultimately no method had been found that wouldn’t almost certainly end with someone being swept away and drowned. For weeks he had come daily to the bend in the river where people had shouted the tribe’s news to him. Then he came weekly, looking more disheveled and asking fewer questions each time, until he had finally stopped coming at all. Most people assumed Zachariah was dead, but Zoe had been at the bend in the river at sunset once and heard mournful singing drifting across the water.

On days they didn’t go hunting at the ruins Zoe would take Zoltan deep into the forest where the tallest trees in the valley stood. Long, fibrous vines hung from the branches above, and she would yank them free, careful to not dislodge any sloths, then spend hours twisting them into ropes while bonding with Zoltan. The Tribe regarded each coloration of feline to have a special meaning and some power that might be tapped into if one’s connection with their cat was strong enough.

Panthers in the tribe’s myths were beasts of stealth. When the Zoe of legend was not silently stalking through the shadows astride Zoltan’s back she would sometimes send him scouting ahead, then use their special bond to see through his eyes. Just as the people of the tribe had shrunk, they believed black cats were the miniaturized descendants of panthers, and so Zoe of the valley had tirelessly worked to bond with her Zoltan since the day she had first plucked him from the ground.

At the end of each day, whether they had been hunting or making rope, Zoe would sit cross-legged and try to clear her mind by focusing on her breathing. She would reach out and attempt to find the conduit between her and Zoltan. At first it was difficult to know if she was imagining what was happening or not. She could see low leaves and mulchy mush gradually turning to dirt on the jungle floor, but suspected it was all in her head.

One day the daydream turned sour when Zoltan/Zoe had spotted a white mouse, the mere sight of which was regarded to be a harbinger of terrible things. Zoe had opened her eyes, shuddering at the daymare. Her blood had turned to ice when Zoltan had emerged from the undergrowth with a snowy tuft in his mouth. Custom dictated that the white mouse be brought to the elders so that they might augur some meaning from the unlucky thing, but Zoe had thrown it into the river, though such an act was believed to augment the misfortune tenfold. Zoe didn’t care, she felt like the luckiest person in the valley.

One day she was peering through Zoltan’s eyes when, with a sudden pop, she realized she could not only see, but also hear echoes of birdsong as the same chirps reached two sets of ears at different times. It was disorientating, but Zoe was gleeful and lingered a while within her beloved cat, flooded with the wisdom that accompanies seeing the world from a new perspective. She disengaged when Zoltan turned to trot back. This was powerful magic they were working with and once Zoe had stayed with Zoltan as he returned to the clearing and learned an important lesson.

The sight of herself through his eyes had done something to her mind. A crackle of electricity that could have come from a dragon passed through her and she had lapsed into unconsciousness, awakening some time later to find Zoltan kneading her chest with concern. She had stroked him, comforted by his purr and resigned herself to be wary of this in the future, aware for the first time that one could indeed break their heart looking for adventure.

Days passed and the apple trees began budding, adding a crisp, sweet fragrance that mingled with the jungle’s earthy scent to the air around the cave. Zoe was crouched in the ruins, thinking about how the smell would sometimes drift far enough into the cave’s sleeping chambers that she’d dream of apples. The day was nearing its end and she had eleven fat mice in her satchel. When Zoltan returned with one more they would bring their bounty back to the cave.

A storm had passed over that afternoon and by the time Zoltan brought the seventh mouse the river was raging. She knew the blue dragons would eventually come, but wanted to stay long enough to feel her hair stand on end again and so she lingered. By the time she tucked the tenth mouse in with the others the ruins were glowing.

A throbbing hum began deep in the ruins, accompanied by a rumble that grew into a high-pitched whine before almost passing the threshold of hearing. Lights flickered to life all around and as the hair on her arms began to tingle she looked at how sallow her skin appeared under the artificial lights. She suddenly missed the sun. A crash outside accompanied by the rattling of chains made her jump. Zoltan turned the corner and paused, a fat mouse hanging limply from his mouth. They had lingered too long and the blue dragons had arrived.

This was more of a situation than a crisis, as the beasts were too large to enter the ruins, but if Zoe waited for them to leave, she would arrive late and a disappointed, hungry Zelda would know exactly where she had been. She crept to the entrance she had come through and peered around the corner. The doorframe hummed beneath her hand as she gazed out and saw four blue dragons on the platform over the river. They were drawn to the places where metal shielding had been ripped or rusted from the sides of the structure, and suckled at the strange energy that flowed through the place.

Three of the dragons were to her left, only the shackled one was blocking her path to the right. Escaping meant a short, but significant sprint down the exterior wall of the ruins to the start of the path leading into the jungle. As Zoe watched, the shackled blue raised its head and began sniffing at the air. She ducked back inside and considered her options.

Once the chains stopped rattling and she deemed it safe, Zoe darted across the opening of the entrance, followed closely by Zoltan. She withdrew a plump mouse from her satchel and sent it sailing through the air in an almost flat arc. The furry morsel hit the smallest of the dragons between its wings and it lifted its serpentine neck, roaring. The other dragons roared in kind, and Zoe felt the floor beneath her shake as the shackled blue trod heavily towards the group, dragging its chains.

The beasts faced off and Zoe saw both of their mouths open wide, arcs of electricity jumping between their huge fangs. The big dragon blasted the smaller one with a shower of sparks and Zoe seized the moment of distraction to make a run for it. She was halfway to the path when a white dragon landed in front of her. Zoe skidded to a stop and looked up. Six dragon-riders clad in sterling armor hovered on their silver mounts above. Two of them held long chains attached to a collar fastened around the white dragon’s neck.

The blue dragons all tensed, ready to take flight, but the rider who seemed to be in charge shouted in a language Zoe had never heard before and the white dragon swept the entire area with a plume of freezing frost-breath. Ice formed immediately over the blue dragons and they all crashed to the ground with their wings spread wide. Zoe and Zoltan were caught in the edge of the blast, and though they were spared its full intensity they were both frozen into place.

Able to move only her eyes, Zoe looked over at Zoltan, some yards behind her. He met her glance with his yellow gaze and offered what comfort he could. The dragon-riders alit and dismounted, shouting orders at each-other in a lilting tongue as they affixed new shackles to the big blue while their silver companions kept watch over the others. Zoe could see the dragon’s huge blue eyes, slitted just like a cat’s, darting around in panic, but it was powerless and immobile, held in place by periodic blasts of frost from the white. It shot sparks out of its nostrils as an iron muzzle was fitted around its mouth.

Zoe felt a deep sadness for the creature as the dragon-riders completed their task. Mercifully it seemed they were soon ready to depart. They climbed up on their silver mounts and affixed the chains leading to the two shackled dragons to their saddles. Before they took off, the leader scanned the area and seemed to notice Zoe for the first time. With a shout it silenced his companions, who were congratulating each-other in hearty tones. Zoe had never been more afraid as the silver-clad giant dismounted and walked towards her.

Zoe watched her distorted reflection in the rider’s mirror-armor grow closer as it approached. She looked up to see her own face spread wide across the giant’s smooth, seamless helmet, but was powerless to move. It regarded her for merely a moment before striding with purpose toward Zoltan. The giant laughed and turned to its companions, speaking animatedly. It then knelt down and plucked frozen Zoltan off the ground.

Zoe’s heart lurched. She had never felt more helpless in her life. As she watched in horror, the giant strode towards his dragon and mounted it, still clutching Zoltan, whose eyes darted around in terror before meeting Zoe’s gaze. As the dragon lifted off the ground the conduit opened between them. Electricity flowed through Zoe’s body as she saw herself through Zoltan’s eyes.

She was a girl frozen to a wall. A moment later she was a speck in a salad. Before darkness overtook her, she appeared to herself as merely a mote in a distant green gem. Zoe’s heart broke as all went black.