The Valley Above

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

There still aren’t, according to all but a few of us.

I run my fingers along the aged wooden cage and give a quick tap on the shimmering substance filling the spaces between each beam. Hard as glass, swirling like the surface of a bubble, but unbreakable. I stretch my arms out to either side, resting my palms on the rough horizontal log, and press my nose to the enchanted surface.

I’ve been here ten years tomorrow, I think, walking the cage’s perimeter, occasionally crossing into the far mountain gate to stock the enclosure with unwitting sheep and pigs. I haven’t once spotted the glowing green eyes of the dragons, but the dome’s balmy air convinces me they’re still lurking within it.

Sometimes I like to think of the cage as a thriving, utopic livestock camp up in the clouds. I stock it like we did the glacial lake on the far edge of the valley years before, and now it's full of life. Full of new generations.

Peering into the cage I can still see charred A-frames between the overgrown trees, and convince myself I remember running through that alley, or climbing that tree, but I know it’s not true. The day the dragons came, the day my parents died and my brother was taken by the Council, and the day the survivors of my village descended into the valley below, washed clean of any memory, and I was left at my post – it’s all burned into my mind. But before that: nothing.

The Council trapped the dragons here less than a week after they descended on our village. I was 8 years old. Nothing but a silly baby goat, if you asked my older brother, Arnkell.

We were zig-zagging around puddles in the alley behind the bathhouse, enjoying a clear morning before the rainclouds spilled into our lush mountain crater after midday. I fell and skinned my knee on a decorative stone jutting out from the house and breathed in sharply through my teeth. My brother circled back as I watched pinpricks of blood come to the surface of my wound, mixing with the mossy green bits the stone left behind.

“Jari! You clumsy baby goat.” He teased.

I squinted up at his shadow and grabbed his outstretched hand, but a shock of heat covered my face and arms, knocking me back onto the soggy ground. I looked up to see a scaled batwing, black bones with red webbing, covering the sky behind Arnkell’s head. My tears burned on my face, and the puddles around us rose into saturated, heavy steam.

“Dragons.” I whispered. Arnkell’s eyes met mine, pinched nearly shut as he pulled me onto my feet. But dragons only exist in the stories that Einar, the unkempt old man who sold buttercups and draba verna in the village square, told to hear us squeal.

We ran home, adrenaline blinding us to the screams, smells, and heat all around us as familiar homes went up in flames. We made it back in time to see mother and father, stone-still, staring up at a hovering creature as big as the distant mountain it eclipsed.

It was a dragon. Judging by the bursts of heat and deep, guttural roars throughout our village, it wasn’t the only one.

I sprinted towards them, my feet flying beneath me against the better judgment of my brain.

I nearly made it to my mother's side but only stopped short when I heard my brother’s voice as clearly as if he was telling me a midnight story in the silence of our bedroom.

“Stop. Turn.” He said, but when I did I saw Arnkell standing back where I started, with an agonized look on his face I wish I could forget. “Don’t look behind you,” his voice whispered, yet there he was, at a distance, mouth unmoving.

Behind me I heard my mother and father taking in a sharp last breath, then a scream drowned out by an oppressive whoosh of flames, wind, and sand. I felt a sledgehammer of heat come down on me, and flames engulfed me up to my neck, circling my waist and incinerating my broadcloth dress. I closed my eyes and waited for death.

In merely seconds, it was over. My ears were ringing, painfully, but I opened my eyes to see my skin completely untouched. I held up a shaking, soot-covered hand in disbelief. Touched my face and torso. Was it a dream?

My brother came into focus and I saw an older man I didn’t recognize standing next to him. “Come here,” a deep voice said, and as my brother snapped his eyes on the wordless man, I knew he had heard a voice too.

Within the week I'd be walking the newly conjured dragon aviary, and my brother would be forced into The Council, and out of my life forever.

I nearly finish my daily loop as I see the sun start inching down the side of the mountains in the West. The storm of memories left me distracted. Hazy.

I let myself sink down beside the monstrous cage before heading back to the keep, sliding down the cold, smooth surface and onto the mossy stones.

But then: "Come here," said a coarse, whispering voice that hit me like a hot spike through the chest.

"Come here," again, as if whoever uttered it was an inch away, but snapping to my feet I could see I was completely alone.

I spun around, heart racing, and through the glassy, steaming surface I could see a pair of glowing green eyes through the dense treeline.

"It's time we leave the Valley."

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