The Inundation

The dragon woke to a sound. The cry of a child. It opened its eyes on the dim lit cave. And quickly roused itself. It felt the heat stirring in its guts and could taste the old bitter gold on its tongue. It felt confusion like a sickness. The dragon’s tail stirred in mud. The floor of the cave had flooded. The meagre pile of treasures lay discoloured and drenched.

With a sharp intake of breath its nostrils took in new smells, of saltwater, ash, the smell of death. A flood. A great flood.

There had been a dream. Was it the dream that had woken it? In this dream a rainbow stood against a cloud, one end melting into the sky, the rest planted in the dark waves that rose and fell like slow wingbeats. Then the rainbow was falling – all that majestic weight – down, down into the waves. The sea rose – such as when the Kraken breaches; but greater, overwhelming. A dark wave surging forward, blackness, and a child’s cry.

The dragon was breathing hotly as it slid through the twisting tunnels that protected its nest. Light of dawn – red and purple light melting – and then it was out in the forest that crowned the cliffs. Rain hissed and there was level wind. Across the empty island the trees were a mess of tangled limbs, draped in deep sea kelp, sea wrack, and strands of rope. The dragon clawed its way over wet logs to its lookout.

A wave had washed over the island.

There had been waves before – storms and high water that broke against the cliffs, leaving a few dead sailors and a smashed boat washed on the rocks below. The bodies too cold and blue to be appetizing. But this was something other. The saltwater had rolled over the top of the cliff. The pines were twisted, split. The dragon discerned what was left of a longboat – its timbers threaded through the trees. The troubled sea beyond was stained, and starred with broken things, the bodies of seabirds, a twist of floating tentacle, planks of wood, shreds of sailcloth catching the dawnlight.

To the north, as if coming out of the sea, red-black clouds like smoke rose into the heights. Like mountains. The dragon felt a dull shaking, as if something drummed under the earth. And an emptiness, as if a choir had stopped its faint, subtle singing. All that remained was the plaintive sound of wind as if it passed through a pile of bones.

I have slept through the end, thought the dragon. And everything has passed through the cold sieve of the sea. The world is gone, no more will men make their way along the whale-road. No more will they forge the gold into rings, coins, brooches.

And then the dragon heard for the second time the cry of a child. A faint whimper. Not a dream.

The sound was coming from the remains of the longboat.

A living survivor. The dragon folded its wings in tightly and bending low moved in slow steps towards the sound.

It saw the child in its mind before it saw the shivering form. A small boy, dressed in beautiful clothes. The dragon took in the sweet aroma of the gold buttons on the shirt, and the ornate silver clasp that held the muddied cloak in place.

The daylight was a little stronger now. The child was still young. No longer an infant. The dragon sensed this, running the claws of its mind through the mind of the small form, sifting for thoughts, searching for answers. Who are you? But the child was too young to answer. It had only a few words - mother, father, i’m thirsty, i’m cold, whispered in a delirium.

The child knew nothing about what had happened to the world – the wave, the rising clouds. But the child knew what was going to happen, for dragons secrete an oily scent that fills man, woman, or struck infant, with a cold fear that will make them drop a bow, or the spear gripped ready, to stand slack and obedient before the coming death. The child began to whimper at the terrible thing it could feel getting closer, hearing the slick wet claws, the smell of bitumen on the hot, fetid breath.

Do not harm the boy, I beg you.

The words flew into the dragon’s mind from somewhere over to its left.

The dragon recoiled and scaled a tree and waited on its quivering branch, shaking out pine cones. You are its father?

I am the boy’s uncle. His only kin.

The dragon clawed its way over rocks and found, wedged in a crevice of the cliff, a wounded man. Alive and clutching a small dagger. A brave man who did not tremble, who did not drop his weapon. One leg shattered.

What fetched you here? I let no foot of man on this rock …

“We fled Midgard,” said the man, the words now on the air, “the merciless elves came from the west, on winged creatures, to work death to men.”

The man’s voice was hoarse but firm. “Over the Sea of Asgard we sailed – north; fled to find the land of Father Odin.”

The dragon moved closer and the man began to speak more quickly – “But haven? There was there none. The high bridge we saw it hurled in the sea …”

The vast rainbow? How?

“The frost giants fell like an axe on Asgard and the angry sea rose … flung us this far to founder … these cliffs.” With a final gasp of hissing breath the man choked out the words, “Harm not the boy, the burden of Odin is on him …”

The man’s breath was gone, but words still floated into the dragon’s mind: the child is marked with magic. Midgard he will restore – make Asgard rise from its ruin.

The dragon saw the listless eyes of the man, darted, and quickly consumed him; then turning back to the whimpering, gasping form of the child, walked close.

The dragon could smell the aura that floated around the boy. The words of a wizard were upon him; the child potent with prophecy.

The dragon lay down beside the boy and breathed deeply, letting its warmth radiate over the child. The rain sizzled and spat. The dragon uncurled a wing to shelter the orphan. Asgard no more.

The dragon lay there and thought of gold, felt the intolerable ache of its absence. Who would make the rings and coins and brooches for him now?

*

Seven days before the Fall of Asgard and the Great Wave, Fyn Gateman rose and set about his day …