The Serpent and the Sage

The dragon was born in embers,

It died in fire and darkness,

It was reborn in in searing light,

And it faded away in soot and ash.

Once, long ago, the world had been different. Creatures of myths and legend, creatures that have since stepped into dreams, had walked through the waking world. Once. And in the dark and tangled places of the wild, filled with fierce beasts and fell monsters, the dragon had been the most fearsome. Once.

But there had been secret spaces, in the deepest heart of the woods, where even the dragon had dared not go. Once. Spaces where unfathomable wells of power dwelled, unknowable presences that radiated anger or love or fear or hope. Spaces where humans would stack their stones and gifts and offerings to appease or entice those powers. Spaces where humans built their shrines and called those powers gods. Once.

Those were the spaces where even a dragon dared not go. Not without good reason.

The dragon had been part of the forest, the fire, and the sky. Once. She would soar to brush the very clouds, or dive in spiral of teeth and death and flames back to the earth. She had hunted the humans through the trees as they made their pilgrimages to their shrines. She swooped upon their livestock from the cover of a cloudy sky. The humans were small, and weak. The dragon knew that they were no threat to her. Once.

They had left a human at the edge of the woods, just inside the shadow of the trees. Soft. Clean. Smelling so tempting. Alone in the dim light from the moon. So very alone. Once.

She had been younger then, and foolish. She had been so sure of her power, so confident that no human could hurt her. She had let herself be tricked. Once.

Just once.

They sprang the trap as soon as she approached the lone human. A young man, his face strained with fear but no tears. No screams. No attempt to flee. Alone. Her prey.

Their bait.

The humans emerged from the trees where they were hiding. Not alone, after all. Not so weak, either. She snapped and thrashed, lashing out at attackers with her teeth. Her claws. Her tail. Blood sprayed from a slash across a young man’s face. The bait. Good. She hoped he was dead.

Ropes and nets snaked across her sinewy form, slithering against her scales. They pinned her wings and claws to her sides, and her body to the ground. That awful, unyielding ground.

The ground she would never leave again.

They had no teeth or claws to fight her with, but spears and swords and flaming torches burned and ripped and tore at her sides. At her legs. At her wings.

Pain and fear and rage surging through her. Her world shrinking to white hot pain searing through her wings, and the blinding light from the torches flickering mockingly against the darkness.

A scream tore from the dragon’s throat as her wings were ripped away. But in that instant the ropes and nets slackened. Just for a moment. Just once. And the dragon writhed away. She burst through the ring of attackers and plunged into the safety of the shadows and the darkness of the night.

She was free.

Hot blood ran from the wounds on her back, the drops sizzling against the ground. Reminding her that her wings were gone. Ruined. Flightless.

She would never be free again.

******

She scrambled and ran. Long past exhaustion. Until she was all but crawling as she limped on trembling, wounded legs. She had no thoughts beyond getting as far away from the humans as she could. The woods thinned and the ground grew more uneven until she was no longer fleeing through the trees but rather clambering up a rocky hillside. Finally, she collapsed against the cold, unfriendly earth, despair and pain and panic wrapping her in fitful unconsciousness.

In the panic the dragon did not recognize the place she had ran to, the tenuous safety she had reached. She did not see the cairn of stones that marked it as one of those sites of ancient power that she would have avoided at all other times, and in all other states of mind.

******

The woman, old by some lights, young by others, did not come across the dragon’s sleeping form by accident. She dwelt in this sacred space, alone on a rocky mountainside, to serve the god whose power lay thickly upon these stones. She was a seer who spoke for the god to those who came seeking the wisdom or the foolishness of the future. And the god had told her to come here, to save this dragon.

The woman, a sage who could mend wounds too grievous for village healers to treat, knelt carefully beside the dragon. The beast did not stir, so deeply asleep, so near to death. She pulled a jar from the folds of her robe. A healing poultice, a recipe of her own, or perhaps passed on from the god she served. Their voices were often the same, braided together in her mind.

The woman, who was known to those who sought her aid as the Sibyl, smoothed the poultice over the beast’s wounds. She did not flinch from the evidence of human cruelty, but silent tears began to roll down her cheeks, still smooth despite the years that had whitened her hair.

The dragon awoke with a roar and a growl, long tail thrashing, panic in its eyes. It was no different from a wounded deer or dog. Or even a human. The dragon was hurt and afraid that she had come to finish the violence that had been done to it.

“You are safe now. You will be alright,” the Sibyl said soothingly, comfortingly. And then, she did not know why, but she added, “I am so sorry. So very sorry.”

A bronze head swung towards her, rows of sharp teeth and eyes of blazing copper. For a moment, the Sibyl felt fear, but she had been told to come here. To save this creature. “I cannot undo what has been done to you, but I can offer my help.” The dragon understood, she could tell by the way it narrowed its eyes, sensing a bargain. The woman did not break eye contact, she did not blink. She knew they both understood the importance of what came next, that they could both feel the weight of the god’s power, speaking through her. “I can heal you the way that time will, but I cannot give you back your wings. You will never fly again. I do not know if you will be able to hunt, to live on your own. But I can offer you shelter, and sustenance, if you stay with me.”

The dragon stood, shakily, and stretched. The woman could see the thin skin forming over the wounds split open again, blood seeping down the creature’s scales. Carefully, gently, intelligently, the dragon lowered her head, and nodded.

The woman reached a hand to the dragon’s forehead, and looked to the sky, squinting against the sun as she called on its power, on the god’s power.

It came as a burst of light and heat. A burning like fire coursing through her veins, passing from her hand into the dragon. A pain that was overwhelming. Unbearable. And over in the span of a heartbeat.

When the light faded, the dragon’s injuries had closed as if years of healing had been compressed into that single instant, that flash of time. Silvery scars webbed the bronze scales, dried blood flaking off like rust-coloured snow.

The Sibyl smiled tiredly. She felt old now, immeasurably ancient. Turning creakily, she beckoned for the dragon to follow her. The strange pair, injured and old, limped slowly towards the Sibyl’s cave in the side of the mountain.

******

Years passed, and the woman and the dragon were fast companions. They did not speak the same language, but they understood each other all the same. And they relied on each other.

To draw on the god’s power and read the future for visitors, the Sibyl drank a tea she prepared from poisonous plants that grew at the base of the mountain. It would leave her ill and weak for days afterwards. But the dragon could eat the plants without harm and could breathe out a smoke that would bring the visions without the ill effects.

There was a second cavern at the back of the cave, and the dragon would curl there when the visitors came, sending billows of grey smoke up the passage to envelope the woman. The dragon was afraid to be seen by the visitors. Afraid of humans and the violence they brought with them.

The visitors would bring gifts with them, offerings of food and firewood, when they came to visit. It was these gifts that sustained the pair since the dragon could no longer hunt as well as she once had.

One day a couple came to visit the Sibyl, to ask not about their own future but rather the fate of their child. They had had a baby recently, a girl, after hoping for a child for years. The Sibyl could see in the father’s face, scarred from a long-past battle, that he wished the long-awaited child had been a son.

From the second cavern the dragon breathed the smoke, and the woman called on the god’s power, feeling the dark velvet of the future wrap around her. Her voice echoed eerily around the couple in the cavern and drifted down to where the dragon listened from hiding.

“Your daughter will grow to be strong in might,

But your future is filled with fright.

She will be a boon to her loved ones,

and fight for them through field and fen.

She will bring strife and ruin to her enemies,

And she will count you to be among them.”

There was a long silence after the Sibyl finished speaking. The dragon knew that she would be emerging from the vision like waking from a dream and would not remember what she had said while under the power.

The Sibyl opened her eyes slowly to looks of horror and devastation from the couple. The mother sobbed, breaking the stillness. “Is there nothing we can do?” Her voice was trembling.

“I am sorry, I can only share what I am shown.” The Sibyl responded.

“Damn you, you wretched woman. You cannot say these things about my child, my family.” The man’s voice was not sad, it ripped out of him in anger. He made a motion as if to lunge across the fire towards the Sibyl.

In the second cave the dragon snarled silently, preparing to rush to their companion’s defence. She still had her claws. Her teeth. She would not need to fly to catch them.

“No!” The mother exclaimed, pulling on her husband’s arm. “You cannot hurt her. She is chosen by the god. You will surely bring a curse on us, on our family.” A silver goat-head brooch on her cloak flashed in the firelight as she was pushed roughly away.

“We have already been cursed! Did you not hear the old crone? She said our daughter would bring us strife. That we would be her enemies!” The man’s voice rose to a roar, but he made no more moves of violence.

“I am sorry if what I saw was upsetting,” the Sibyl spoke more firmly now. But I do not choose the visions, nor can I tell you what they mean.”

“Then tell us how to change it,” the father growled. “You must do that at least.”

“I have never heard of any successful means of running from the prophecies. You wished to know your fate, and now your fate is set. Whatever path you think to walk to escape it will only lead you to it in the end.”

Another choking sob came from the mother, the pitiful sound of a wounded animal that knows it has been caught. For the first time the dragon, hidden in their darkness, found that she cared about one of the Sibyl’s visitors. That sob had spoken to her, one broken creature to another.

The man cursed. “We shall see about that, witch.” They left in a swirl of wool, anger and sadness billowing from them in equal measure. The father did not speak again, but the Sibyl saw the mother discretely bob into a curtsey before the carving of the god at the entrance of the cave, letting a wrapped parcel of food drop to the floor before hurrying after her husband.

******

There were not as many visitors for a while after that seeing. The winter set in earlier than usual, and the journey from the human villages was long and cold. The pile of supplies that stored away from offerings dwindled.

Feeling restless, propelled by a hunger that crouched in the pit of her stomach, the dragon ventured into the dark of night to hunt. She hunted only rarely since her injuries. It was much harder to find prey when you could not stalk it from the air. She limped still. But she had never been meant to run swiftly to chase fleeing creature. Instead, she had to move slowly. To lie in wait. To hope something would wander close enough to pounce on.

The dragon headed down the mountain and into the woods at its base. She did not realize where she was heading until she was already there. She had reached the same hollow in the forest where she had been attacked, all those years ago.

The dragon trembled with remembered fear and pain. She would turn back. She must turn back. Even if that meant she would be hungry. It was too much, too difficult. She could almost taste the hot smell of blood. She could nearly feel the burning lines carved by the slicing of blades and torches. And she could almost hear the cries of pain.

She could hear a cry. Someone was crying. Someone else.

Slinking closer to the clearing, the dragon tracked the sound of the cries. She peered through the darkness, seeing a small shape huddled on the forest floor, nestled among the roots of nearby trees.

Cautiously, remembering the trap she had fallen into, the dragon drew nearer. A long pause. Nose to the wind. Eyes closed to better hear the forest. Nothing was waiting for her. No scent of metal or sounds of breathing. No beating hearts.

Except in the clearing. She crept towards the bundle on the ground. It was quieter now. A whimper, not a cry. It wiggled and shifted. Something was alive in that pile of cloth.

The dragon reached out a careful claw and hooked the rough spun wool, pulling it gently aside. The enormous creature, fearsome even without her wings, a creature from bedtime stories and nightmares, gazed down at a tiny child, crying on the damp earth of the forest.

The child, the infant, was pale and nearly blue from the cold. Its face was scrunched as it screamed in pain and discomfort. There was something wrong about how the child moved. The metallic tang of blood hung in the air, making her stomach growl with days’ worth of hunger.

Pupils dilating against the darkness, the peered closer at the infant, and snarled. Shining dully in the slight light from the slivered moon, a thin spike of metal glinted against a small foot. It pierced through one ankle and into the other, binding them together. Hobbling a child too young to know how to walk.

Rage and fury filled the dragon, chasing all thought of hunger away. The humans had hurt this creature. They had injured and maimed it and bound it in place. Just as they did to the dragon. She would save it. Just as the Sibyl had done for her.

Slowly and gingerly the dragon wrapped the cloth back over the child and gripped the corners in her teeth, lifting the bundle. Then she made her way quickly but carefully back to the safety and warmth of the mountain cave.

******

The Sibyl was also shocked and enraged when the dragon woke her to attend to the baby. The dragon knew her well enough to see she was holding in tears as she warmed the infant by the fire and boiled a cauldron of water and rags. The spike was removed carefully, the wounds cleaned thoroughly and bound with clean cloth.

“Her injuries are not as bad as yours were,” the Sibyl told the dragon. “You found her in time. I can help her, even without calling on the god for assistance.” The dragon narrowed copper eyes. “Do not worry. She will live. But we must keep her warm.”

As the woman rewrapped the wool blanket to swaddle the baby, something clinked heavily. Nestled among the folds of the cloak was a silver brooch in the shape of a goat’s head. The Sibyl held it tightly for a moment, remembering a distraught woman an angry, scarred man’s face. She carefully wrapped the brooch in a small square of cloth, tucking it inside the bundle with the baby. “It was there to keep her safe,” she told the dragon. “And it brought her to us.”

Snorting in agreement, the dragon breathed a thread of flame into the fire, fanning the flames higher. Then she curled protectively around the swaddled baby. The dragon settled down to sleep, a new warmth in her stomach driving away even the pangs of hunger.

******

Eventually the visitors came back. Even the snows of winter could not keep the curious and the desperate away forever. And with the visitors came food, and the hunger faded into a memory once more.

The infant recovered from her ordeal swiftly, and without lasting injuries beyond round scars that marred both of her ankles. The Sibyl called the baby Aigida, a name that meant goat, after the brooch she had found with the baby.

When the Sibyl had visitors Aigida would stay in a side cave, where the vision smoke did not reach. When she grew older, Aigida would roam the hillsides when they had visitors instead, running wild like a deer.

From the Sibyl, Aigida learned about the plants that grew on the hillside, how to use them to heal, or to harm. She learned to sew, to cook, to follow the read the signs of nature.

When she was older, she joined the dragon on nighttime hunts, and learned to stalk prey through the shadows with a sling and a knife. She learned to move silently through the forest, to hear a twig snap at a distance, and to vanish into the trees like she had never been there.

She became as much a creature of the forest as a human. Like the beasts of the forest and the sky she was strong and wise and wild.

But while Aigida grew stronger and taller, the Sibyl seemed to shrink away. Her ageless face became lined and weary, even when she wasn’t drawing on the power of the god. The prophecies began to take more and more out of her, draining her for days after each vision. She developed a persistent cough that never left, even in the warmth of summer. In the dead of winter, when the wind howled outside the cave, the cough wracked through her body and seemed to nearly crack her brittle frame.

For the first time, visitors were turned away when the Sibyl was too weak to call upon the visions. They returned, at first, but eventually the stream of visitors dwindled, and then dried up altogether.

Aigida and the dragon tried to hunt to support them all with food, but the winter snows came, and the woods grew barren and empty. Animals fled to warmer foraging grounds. And more often than not they would return empty handed.

In the darkest hours of the morning Aigida could no longer sleep. Hunger, and fear of what would happen to the Sibyl and the dragon, kept her awake. She knew that the old woman was not strong enough to make it through a winter without food, and that the dragon, while imposing and fearsome, was no longer able to fend for herself as she once had.

She rose, moving quietly to not wake her anyone. She stowed her hunting knife and sling in the loops of her belt. Aigida wrapped herself in layers of cloth for warmth, ending with the very blanket she had been found in, all those years ago. She fastened it around her shoulders with the goat’s head brooch, the only thing she had left of the family that had left her, that had not wanted her. Or almost the only thing. The soft glow of the banked fire seemed to catch on a dull piece of metal, the spike that had been driven through her ankle as a babe. With a trembling hand, Aigida slid the spike through a twist of her hair, pinning it away from her face. And then she left the cave.

The dragon and the Sage woke with the sun. Unusually, for how things had been, they woke to the smell of roasting meat. Aigida was crouched near the fire, a flank of sheep sizzling and spitting as it roasted over the flames. “I found us food,” the girl said, lifting her chin proudly.

The Sibyl looked worried, concerned about where the sheep had come from. But the dragon settled happily to eat the meat. She had hunted sheep from human farms before. She would have continued if the shepherds would not have spotted her the moment she slunk out of the forest.

Aigida knew that the older woman was worried, but she had worries of her own. The cough that shook the Sibyl’s slight frame was growing worse with the cold of winter and the lack of food. She felt no guilt for taking from those who could not be bothered to help a lonely woman who had helped all of them in the past. Visitors who had left gifts gladly when they came for answers or healing had forgotten about the old woman when she was not of immediate service to them.

Aigida continued to hunt at the farms. The food she took from the villages was needed, and too easy to come by to give up. She was careful to leave no tracks behind, to not be seen. There were so many sheep, and the winter was fierce enough to drive the other predators out of the woods. The humans would never notice. It was worth the risk.

Or so she thought.

The humans noticed. Of course they had. Maybe it was a stray track, or a scent on the breeze. Maybe Aigida had dropped one of the dragon’s scales from her cloak while hunting. Or maybe the kills were too clean, too precise, to have been from a normal beast. But the humans noticed.

And they blamed the dragon.

The fear that ripped through the towns was fierce and sudden. They believed they had killed the dragon years before. But now it was back. They were in danger. First it was sheep and livestock, but soon it would be their children, their families, themselves.

Quickly they came together and formed a plan. They would hunt the monster down, and they would kill it once and for all. Before it could kill them. A crowed surged and swelled, gathering pitchforks and swords and spears and torches. They streamed from the towns, led by the petty lord of their villages. He was an older man, but with a wiry frame that hinted at muscles in his youth. A past spent at war. A history of fighting. Of violence. Parallel scars, like claw marks, slashed across his face, making it look sinister in the flickering torchlight.

The mob moved into the woods, ready to bring the dragon to its death, and the moon rose high in the sky behind them.

The dragon still sometimes hunted at night. Even with Aigida supplying food. She enjoyed the darkness. The quiet moments in the woods. The reminder of what she had once been. It was almost like being whole again. But she never looked at the sky. It hurt too much to be reminded of the freedom she had once had.

Snow began to fall softly as the dragon slipped into the woods. The scraping of scales against the ground became quieter. Muffled to nothing in the building snow. The dragon swished forward quietly, leaving a dark swathe behind her in the freshly fallen snow.

The dragon was still the most fearsome beast in the forest. She did not hide her tracks. Who would be foolish enough to follow them?

The mob came across the tracks near of the sacred spaces in the forest, at a shrine to a goddess of the hunt and wild beats. A fitting place to find and kill a monster.

In the cave Aigida woke to a fresh snowfall, and the sharp smell of ice in her nose. But there was something else, a warmth like a midsummer sun that seemed to fill her veins with fire. The warmth was not comforting, it pulsed with danger like drawing too near to a flame. A sense of unease ran down her spine. She wrapped herself in warm cloth, gathered her weapons, and took up the spike she always carried on a hunt. And then she ran down the mountain. Following the dragon.

A herd of deer, scrawny from a tough winter, dug tiredly through the crust of snow and ice on the ground, searching for what was left of the summer grass. They did not hear the dragon approaching, and the wind did not betray her scent. She would have a successful hunt for once.

The lord and his men saw the deer first, but then a slight movement on the other side of the hollow caught their eyes. The dragon was here. And it would not get away.

Aigida found the dragon tracks first, but she did not go far before she noticed other tracks. Human tracks. Many of them. And they were all headed in the same direction she was, following the dragon tracks. Fear gripped her chest. She ran faster, silent now, hunting the hunters.

The dragon was so focussed on the deer that she was not paying enough attention to her surroundings. A mistake. A mistake she had made before. A mistake she had promised herself she would not make again. It was the flick of the stag’s ears that was her first warning. A snapping of a twig in the underbrush.

The dragon roared and spun towards her attackers, but a spear had already been thrown, burying itself in her shoulder. Snapping and growling the dragon covered the distance to the humans in a single bound. Powerful claws swiping at the attackers. She knocked several of them to the ground, but there were so many of them. And the spears were already in flight. The swords were slashing at her sides. Torches flared into light, blinding against the darkness of the night.

This time the dragon could fight back. She was not bound to the ground. And she would make them pay this time. Teeth and claws flashed in the darkness, but so did metal blades. The snow that covered the sacred hollow, the snow that had been so white and soft moments before, was sodden and dark with blood. Bodies lay crumpled on the ground.

But there were more men. So many more of them. The dragon was tiring. And they kept coming. She could not fend them all off. She could not continue.

Aigida was gasping now, a cramp burning in her side against her ribs. She could hear the fight ahead of her. She could hear the dragon screaming in rage. And then she couldn’t.

Fighting to breathe and holding back tears, Aigida raced through the night. It was too late. She knew it was too late before she got there. The dragon was already down, dying on the ground, and the men who were left alive were circling the body. Soot and ash from extinguished torches stained the snow black, mingling with the spreading pool of dark blood.

Aigida paused in the darkness at the edge of the hollow, tears streaming down her face. She moved slightly, not enough to be heard by human ears. But it was enough for the dragon to hear. Dimming copper eyes opened, for a final time, and found the girl’s face in the darkness.

As the dragon died in a ring of burned-out torches, a raging fire ignited in Aigida’s chest. An animal snarl built in her chest. She was not thinking of the lessons she had learned from the Sibyl now, lessons of patience and control. She could only think of what she had learned from the dragon. Fire. Fight. Vengeance.

She would make them pay for this. And the man in the heavy cloak, the one with the gold jewelry and the scar on his face who seemed to be in charge, he was the one who would pay first.

She drew back into the trees, circling the hollow to approach her prey. They were careless now. Reckless from the thrill of a successful hunt. The danger was over. So they thought.

Aigida leaped from the darkness. Landing on the leader. Tackling him to the ground. His men were too far away, on the other side of the hollow. Too slow to react.

They rolled over and over in the snow. The aging warrior and the wild girl. The light from the remaining torches glinted off metal. Her knife. His rings. Her brooch.

His eyes widened in shock and fear. His face turned paled and sweat pooled on his forehead, despite the frigid air. “No!” he yelled, “How can it be? Who are you?” He snarled and batted her knife away, tearing the brooch off her cloak. “Where did you get this?”

Aigida spat blood on the ground, clawing for the brooch. “It’s mine. From my parents. The ones that left me to die.”

The man gasped and convulsed, a hand fluttering to his chest like he felt a sudden pain. “Impossible. You can’t be her. She’s dead. I made sure of it.” He dropped his weapons, shock and fear numbing him to anything else. Beneath his trembling fingers another glint of metal. Another brooch. A goat’s head that pinned the man’s cloak. The same shape, but in gold.

Realization settled across the girl in a heavy blanket, like the snow settling on the body of the dragon. Time slowed around her. His guard was down. Her knife glinted from just out of arm’s reach. The other men were almost on her. Weapons drawn. Shouting incoherently, like an echo building in the depths of the cave.

And the dragon, just beyond them. Laying still on the forest floor. Snow covering the wounds and blood, as if she were only sleeping.

With an animal roar Aigida lunged forward again, a hand darting out towards the man. Towards her father. Her hair tumbled around her as she closed the distance. Eyes locked with his. A haunting knowledge echoed in identical shades of hazel.

A final glint of metal in the torchlight, and the spike pierced through his ribcage and into his heart.