Iron Eye

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” she said her voice low, the intonation on “always”. The Alchemist Mierielle bint Icaros ibn Daidalos often spoke with a roughness that didn’t match her tall, lithe frame. The statement hung in the air, like a wisp of smoke floating on a still morning. What was I supposed to do with that? So, I swallowed the bait. I probably should have been paying more attention, although to be fair it wasn’t until much later it became clear what she was up to.

“Really? So, how did they get there?”

Her grin, set in an oval face framed by dark curls, exposed sparkling teeth and crinkled the deep lines at the corners of her eyes. Man, those eyes, like chips of blue ice, deep and clear cut the air across the massive oak desk in the heart of the cavernous study. Those eyes, flashed with golden sparks that I couldn’t quite work out if I was imagining or not. They reminded me of the sheets of ice that hung from the eaves of the Gatehouse in mid-Winter, cold, hard, but also lit from behind by the guard’s fires.

“Well, Quill, that is a question worth asking!” I tried to keep the surprise off my face. When an alchemist says a question is worth asking, you better listen to the answer. I wasn’t the sharpest sword in the rack, but I knew that much for sure, and she’d never given me that compliment before.

“Simply put they came for the iron ore, veins of Hematite to be more precise which run richly through the mountains that frame the Valley. The Ironbound Range holds some of the purest iron ore veins in the northern world, and the dragons expanding their range out of the northern wilderness had found it.”

Actually, that ringed true. I unconsciously touched the Valley Forged long-knife strapped to my right thigh. My much plainer, but still excellent soldiers sword was propped next to the steel-bound front doors. (“You can’t wear that thing in here, you’ll break something”, was her greeting when I’d first turned up. Fair enough too with the conglomeration of tables, benches, flasks, containers, sacks, instruments, cabinets, and other alchemical stuff that was crammed into the room.)

I raised an eyebrow. "Ore? What do they want iron ore for, they don’t make things do they?”

“Oh no,” she said lightly as if not quite the question worth asking. “They don’t make things, they eat it.”

Right. Like I said I’m not the sharpest blade, but was I being wound up here? “C’mon Mier. Eat it? Don’t they eat virgins, and cows and sheep and stuff?”

The responding snort was slightly unfeminine I thought, and it hurt a bit too although I tried to hide it.

“You’ve become a dragon expert, have you? Dragons need iron to fuel their metabolism and strengthen their skeleton. They’re like birds, they have hollow bones, but they have massive bodies, and big wings so they need the tensile strength. It makes their scales and claws extremely tough; you can’t just stab them with a spear like other animals. Also, when the iron oxide reacts with the sulphuric acid in their stomachs, water is a by-product, so they don’t need free water to drink. Makes them very resilient and adaptable, that’s how they survive in the northern deserts.”

“Oh, ok, that makes sense.” Except the metabolawhatever bit, and solfury thing… and the bit about birds having hollow bones, that’s not right is it?

Then those chips of ice really lit up, “So do you want to know what the totally interesting thing is!?” she leaned forward, strands of black hair swaying.

“Oh yeah, of course.” I got the impression I’d have found out regardless of if I did or not.

“If the dragons find a particularly rich vein of oxide that has high iron content, there’s enough free iron to react with the acid this time to produce hydrogen!” She paused with a cheerfully expectant look on her face.

“Ah, wow, that’s pretty cool!” I hazarded hopefully.

“Cool? What? No, the hydrogen, they store it in specialised sacs in their throats,” her slender fingers rubbed each side of her long, elegant neck, “and they can breathe it out at will, so when the hydrogen meets the air it burns. That’s how dragons can breathe fire. It's hot, not cold.” She frowned slightly at me then, as if suspecting I wasn’t following her exactly. She was right too, although I was beginning to suspect she didn’t know what she was talking about. Dragons breathe fire because they're magical creatures, everyone knew that!

She continued, “So basically without iron they’re just an overgrown lizard, they can’t fly, or breathe fire and are vulnerable to attack by predators. So yes, they eat iron. They also eat cows, but I don’t believe they have any particular favouritism towards virgins over other humanoids.”

The lecture done with she let out a deep breath. “Quill, listen, I have a proposal for you.”

OK should have seen it coming. Of course as I said earlier I was already hooked, and not paying as much attention as I should have.

Just to explain, even though my relationship with the alchemist occasionally diverted into the more intimate, it was mostly founded on a working contract. See I may not know my acids from my oxides, but I am pretty handy with certain other arts, mostly those leaning towards the martial variety. This was coupled with a reasonably broad worldview when it came to morals and ethics, and so moved in circles populated by men and women of more dubious character. I was not above the odd piece of larceny, including if it came to it that involving bribery, blackmail, or violence. So I’d entered into a mutually beneficial partnership where I hunted out and procured, (one way or another), various uncommon and hard to obtain items: amulets, statuettes, powders, poisons, gemstones, rare metals, and on more than one occasion strange biological specimens. (A baby December Sea mantis squid, its multiple eyes and countless wickedly hooked tentacles hung preserved in the large floor-to-ceiling glass column in the middle of Mierielle’s laboratory. It was my greatest find to date and another story of course.) She seemed to ignore my methods of obtaining said items, for the most part, claiming that science was the greatest ethic. There was some awkwardness about the matter of outright murder, but to be honest I did try to avoid that myself. So we definitely had an amicable friendship despite our obvious differences.

“Sure, give it to me,” I stated bluntly.

She steepled her fingers and peered at me with that ‘lets get down to business’ look she had.

“So the thing with the Valley dragons is that after moving into a couple of the ore mines, they started taking the odd cow, farm hand and miner, (not necessarily of virgin status). And somewhere they worked out that the implements the farmers and miners used were refined ore, pure iron in other words. It was like candy and produced fire like you wouldn’t believe! They loved it so much they started attacking purely to take the iron tools, weapons, and other things. It didn’t take long before they were raiding the merchant convoys which not only had the shipments of steel weapons and armour produced in the Valleys smithies, but also chest loads of coins, iron, copper, silver, gold…. The thing is they weren’t that good at knowing the difference between all the metals to start with so they took everything.” She paused again for dramatic effect, “and so you can imagine these dragons, they collected quite the hoard. It’s still there, all that silver and gold, and a few jewels and other things that they collected as well. They had no use for it, so it just accumulated in their lairs, the old mines they took over.”

Now it was my turn to pause. I always liked this part, a type of flirting.

“OK. How much gold and stuff are we talking about?”

“Mountains of it, more than you could carry with a hundred wagons.”

“And I’m assuming you want me to go get it, or at least what I can?”

“Yes. I need to fund a project I’ve been working on, but I can’t get any backers. I’m going to need gold and lots of it to get things moving. More than I have or can loan.”

In hindsight I should have asked some other questions at this point, but I was distracted by self-interest. “Mmm, does this involve a dragon?”

“Yes.”

“Not a metaphorical one, a real one?”

“Of course.”

“Ah. Aren’t dragons, like, dangerous?”

“Yes! If it wasn’t going to be dangerous, with some risk involved, the treasure wouldn’t be worth it, would it? Remember ‘You will find the thing you most need to find in the place you least wish to look for it.' ”

I thought about that statement for a few seconds, I didn’t remember hearing it before, it was one of those things that sounded right, sort of…

She continued. “Also I have protection for you, I wouldn’t send you to face a dragon on your own.”

“Ok, what protection?” The idea of dealing with dragons alone was not in the slightest bit appealing, I was wondering where she was going to pull the small army I was imagining from.

She opened a drawer on her side of the desk and pulled out two items, one was a cloth bag held tight with a drawstring, and the other a folded parchment of some sort. With graceful tugs of her slender fingers, she undid the bag and tipped a medallion attached to a chain of silver links onto the table.

“This,” she stated, holding up the amulet by its chain and dangling it in front of me like a hypnotist, “is Embers Annoyance. It gives the wearer command and control over dragons, basilisks, salamanders, and other sentient reptilian creatures.”

It was my turn to lean forward. I was instantly mesmerised, the rondure was a small slightly asymmetrical ellipse, with a series of concentric circles and ovals etched within it. No longer than the first knuckle of my thumb, and no thicker than my knifes blade. I thought its material was a dark dull metal, and below the designs, it swirled with different shades. A bit like steel blades that had been folded several times during forging. It had the overall appearance of an eye and as I examined it my vision became blurry. A rhythmic ache started at the back of my skull, my minds eye expanded and a vision of steep mountain sides, gray clouds scudding across the shattered peaks, filled my eyes.

I looked down on the forested landscape, creeks and rivers winding like silver veins. A pressure built deep in my guts, my mouth opened, a roar began….

“Quill!” the alchemist's harsh command snapped me out of my trance, “don’t look at it too long my dear.” She slipped it back into its bag. I blinked furiously, the strange headache receded as quickly as it had appeared.

“Now this is a map, an old one so take care of it.” The dry parchment unfolded into a small square about the size of a dinner plate, on it was faded, but legible topographical markings. “It is a geological survey map of the Ironbound Ranges, known colloquially as the Rusty Mountains, the mines are marked with the pick symbols here and here.” One of the symbols located in a section of the map covered in tight contour lines was circled in red, an obviously later addition to the map. Written next to it in small eccentric handwriting were the words ‘Unknown Dragon – Iron Eyes mate?’

“This is where you will be going, make your way to the mining town of Smelt, here,” she pointed first to the circled mine, then to a red dot labeled 'Smelt', “from there it should be easy enough to find your way.”

I studied the map and nodded, at which she efficiently folded the map back up so that it would fit comfortably in the palm of a hand and slid it into a waterproof leather case.

“The medallion and map belonged to a famous herpetologist, Ember. He designed and enchanted several of the amulets so he could study dragons and other dangerous reptiles in safety. The target reptile will obey whatever command you give them in any tongue, except that which makes them harm or kill themselves. However, you need to be careful of what commands you use. Dragons are very intelligent and don’t really like being told what to do, so they’ll trick you if you’re not careful. Remember this, the first command you use must be to cause you no harm, either physical or mental. That way at least you’ll stay alive long enough to get the next command in. Understand?”

“Yeah sure, got it. First command - don’t harm me.” Well, it seemed simple enough, and I trusted Mierielle that the charm would work as suggested. Time to close things out then. “OK, what’s the deal?”

“I get a quarter of whatever treasure you find, and provided you survive I need Embers Annoyance and the map back.”

Provided I survive. It was ok though, risk and reward go hand in hand in my experience, this could undoubtedly set me up for a long time if I played it right. “OK, sounds pretty good. Annoyance, that’s a strange name isn’t it?”

She shrugged. “Semantics, Ember was pretty eccentric by all accounts.” She reached over and offered her hand, which I took first with palm touching palm, then moving to grasping thumbs. The first time I’d done this I was surprised at the strength in her grip, now it felt reassuring, and I enjoyed the close warmth of her hold.

“Good!” she smiled slightly then, handing over the bag and leather case.

“Quill, I truly hope you succeed on this, I think you will learn a lot, help you out with your problems. It will be good to see you again.”

Problems? What did she mean by that?

“Sure, thanks Mierielle.”

***

Back in the simple room I was renting in the River Quarter, I slipped the medallion over my head, thinking it the safest place to keep it for now. The cool metal rested comfortably on my chest as I laid down for a few spans of sleep. I tried thinking through the afternoon’s discussions, planning my next steps, but slipped into sleep nearly instantly.

My true name, unpronounceable in any human tongue, translated approximately as "The Eternal Flame of the Sun". Which was probably a bit optimistic on behalf of my parents, whom I remembered vaguely, eons-old now. It had a nice ring to it though. I was dreaming dragon things, flying through the peaks of the world like I did when younger, my mate and friend was there, "Iron Eye." I liked her name better, it had a solid reality to it, and bespoke of seeing the truth in things. I knew I was dreaming of course as Iron Eye had died a century ago, but the memory was still strong, and I was enjoying spending time with her again.

It was getting to the best bit, where we danced through the jagged lightning and chaotic downbursts of a thunderous summer storm, exulting in power and freedom. We’d exhale flames at each other, a game of sparks and embers. I gazed down and saw a landscape of forest, of creeks and rivers highlighted like veins of silver. The pressure built, the heat rose sharply on the back of my forked tongue…..

I woke startled, upright and breathing heavily, like I’d just been in a fight. The warm light of coals still glowing in the fireplace gave me just enough to see by. I hastily pulled the medallion over my head and dropped it shakingly back in its carry bag. Shoving it roughly under the heavy cloak lying on the floor next to my bed, I wondered if Mierielle had told me everything there was to know about it.

As it turned out it would be a while until I found out, and if I’d been told or had a premonition of it, at that time I simply wouldn’t have believed it was possible.