The Descent of Dragons
a Greenmeadows story by Stephen Brooke
“Before man, was
the race of dragons. Not formed were they, like men, in the image of
the gods, nor were their minds like those of men.
“In those days—”
“Just how long ago
was this?”
Ransax looked up
from his volume, his annoyance obvious—to those who knew dragons.
“Millions of years, I’m sure.”
“Millions?”
objected Sir Grissol. “Surely the world hasn’t been around that
long!” He noted his scaly friend’s expression and decided to drop
the subject. “Well, go on.”
“In those days,”
continued Ransax, settling down again to his reading, “only wild
beasts roamed the earth. And the gods said, Let us raise up the
beasts, so they might know us.”
“You say this is a
holy text, Randy?” asked the old knight. “I always thought you
dragons were a rather, well, skeptical bunch.”
“Indeed,”
replied the dragon. “That does not mean we haven’t our
traditions. Though,” he added, with a slight, steamy chuckle, “we
may not take them quite so literally as humans do.”
“Hmmph. I do
believe that might have been intended as an insult.”
“You are what you
are.” Ransax shrugged, his wings stirring up a faint breeze in the
study. Dust wafted from atop the high, disorderly stacks of books.
“Our holy texts
are repositories of dragon wisdom. And,” he added, “often pretty
good stories. We dragons do love stories.”
Grissol Greenmeadows
gave him a knowing smile. “This is one human who has learned not to
take your stories quite so literally. I realize you like to,
um, embellish.”
“Perhaps, a
smidgen,” admitted Ransax. “But back to the Draconotheca.
“Many were the
creatures they shaped, creatures of the air and of the sea and of the
earth. Then of the stock of the weasel and badger, creatures that
dwell in the earth, fierce, cunning, they created the dragons.”
“So you’re
actually a—a weasel?” gasped the knight. “Everyone thinks
you’re reptiles!”
“And we usually do
not attempt to disabuse them of the notion. Or we eat them before the
subject comes up. But after all, Greenmeadows, do I truly seem very
lizard-like? I’m not exactly cold-blooded, after all!”
“Well, I had
wondered about the ears,” admitted Sir Grissol. “Never seen a
snake with ears.”
Ransax pricked his
large fox-like ears. “The better to hear you with, my friend.”
Sir Grissol
chuckled. “That’s a good line. Someone should use it in a story.”
“I suppose so.
Anyway, your folk tend to confuse us with the wyverns, who are
reptiles. To our eyes we seem nothing alike but then you humans all
look much the same to us. Incidentally,” added Ransax, “the gods
formed your race of the apes. It is rather obvious to my people that
they didn’t raise you very far.”
“At least we left
our trees,” huffed Grissol. “You still live in a hole in the
ground.”
“Ha, quite true,
my friend, quite true. I admittedly can’t see you climbing a tree.”
Grissol, for a
moment, recalled a much younger version of himself doing just that.
Ah, the apples that grew in his neighbor’s orchard! And his
neighbor’s daughter who might be found there as well—hmm, no need
to mention any of that to this dragon. “So, you were raised up from
weasels and we can claim the monkeys as our ancestors. Did the gods
mess about with any other animals?”
“There is
something about that in here,” replied Ransax, leafing through his
tome. “Not much though, as I remember. This book concentrates on my
own people.” He stopped and peered at a page. “Ah, yes. There
were eagles. Or maybe hawks? It’s a bit unclear. And the dolphins,
of course. In other words,” said the dragon, looking at his
companion over the top of the out-sized book, “one intelligent race
for each of the four elements.”
“Dragons are fire,
right?”
“No. Earth. You
sun-loving humans are the People of the Fire.”
“I suppose that
makes sense,” admitted the elderly knight. With a chuckle, he
added, “I could be pretty hotheaded as a youth.”
Ransax was still
poring over his text. “Yes, eagles. It makes sense that they would
have to be fairly large to be more than bird-brains.” He shut the
Draconotheca and placed it
atop a tall stack of books. “I shall have to sort these out
someday,” he mused. “Speaking of descending, I just received some
new barrels of Saragossan
wine. What say we go down to the cellar and sample it?”
“I
thought this was a cellar,” said Grissol. It was downstairs
from the living quarters, wasn’t it?
“I have cellars
below cellars below cellars here, my friend,” claimed the dragon.
“After all,” he added, with a wink, “I have to hide my treasure
somewhere.”
Grissol Greenmeadows
snorted. “I keep hearing of this treasure but I’ve never seen any
of it.” He rose from the overstuffed chair and stretched. “But
I’ll settle for seeing some of your wine right now.”
“Bring along a
lamp, will you? I know you humans don’t see that well in the dark.”
Lord Ransax led the
way, down a dim hallway and then a stair. “We dragons tend to be
secretive about our hordes. In the blood, you know?” he told the
knight, with a slightly embarrassed air. “I’ll admit I sometimes
go down and sleep on it. It’s a bad habit but it is something my
people do.”
“Sounds deucedly
uncomfortable to me,” opined Sir Grissol. “And cold.”
“Dragon bodies
tend to heat up any space they occupy rather quickly,” replied his
host. “Lying on a cool pile of gold can actually be quite
refreshing. Ah, here we are.” He pushed open a heavy oaken door.
“Hmm, I thought I locked that after the delivery.”
Stacks of barrels
and racks of bottles lined the walls of the chamber. It was a
well-stocked wine cellar indeed and the knight felt a twinge of envy
when he thought of his own few small casks of port.
“The new stuff is
over here.” Ransax shook his head. “That barrel shouldn’t be on
its end. Monsieur Biber’s delivery men know better than that.”
“Biber, eh? I
can’t afford to deal with him.” Grissol ambled over to the
barrel, marked ‘M. Biber,’ meaning to put it onto its side—and
perhaps sample it. It tipped over readily on its own. The loose lid
fell off and rolled across the stone floor. “I say, this one is
already drained!”
Ransax looked into
the empty keg and sniffed suspiciously. “There was a human in this
barrel.” His long nose wrinkled. “Or I think it was a human.
Slightly odd scent to it.”
“An intruder?”
asked Grissol. “Ah! Your treasure!”
The dragon
immediately turned and started for the doorway. “Follow me,” came
his curt order. To the right and down stairs hewn from the stone they
hurried, Sir Grissol huffing at the exertion of keeping up with the
dragon. He had never seen this part of his friend’s lair, nor even
knew it existed.
Nor had he ever seen
the dragon so focused. “I can still catch the scent,” growled
Ransax. “Definitely headed for my treasure chamber. Watch your
head.”
The rough rocky
tunnel was too dark for Grissol to see any ceiling. Not by the light
of the little oil lamp he carried. He reached upward and couldn’t
touch it. More of a concern for the dragon, maybe. Ransax halted and
looked back at his companion.
“He’s seen it
now, and knows the way. I suppose I should eat him.” He gave
Grissol a sidelong look. “You would have to go all knightly on me,
wouldn’t you?”
“Afraid so, old
boy. Can’t have you eating people in my neighborhood.”
“Well, here we
are.” There was no door, only a hole in the rock. This was all
natural cave down here, Grissol suspected. He held high his light.
With a great foghorn
of a bellow, Ransax sprang into the chamber, only to stop short.
“Why that’s no
man!” exclaimed Sir Grissol. Before them stood a somewhat
diminutive dragon. Diminutive beside the impressive Lord Ransax, that
is, who approached a ton and a half in weight. Other dragons,
naturally, could recognize that Ransax was fat and old, but to human
eyes he was simply very large.
This dragon scaled
at maybe a third of that and was several feet shorter. “Draubax?”
It hung its head and
murmured, “Hi, Grandpa.”
“So you were in
that barrel. And in human form?”
“Yes, sir,”
admitted the young worm.
Grissol knew dragons
could do this and had seen Ransax as a rather disreputable-looking
fat old man on occasion, but had never been there for the actual
changing of form. He wondered briefly whether the dragon was just as
weighty when it was human. That would have made for a decidedly heavy
barrel!
“I sneaked into
the winery and hid,” continued Draubax. “I—I wanted to see your
treasure! I’ll have a pile like this someday!”
“Ha, you’d
probably like to steal mine, boy!” Ransax thundered.
The young dragon
cringed. “No, sir, no! I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Don’t be
silly,” his grandfather told him. “Of course you would. You’re
supposed to! That’s
what we dragons do.”
Grissol
Greenmeadows, meanwhile, was quietly surveying the glittering heap of
treasure. “As untidy as the rest of your place, Randy,” he
stated.
“I know exactly
where every coin is,” came the reply. “And if any are missing—”
Ransax gave his grandson an exaggeratedly menacing look, before
whispering to Grissol, “Were that another dragon he would not leave
here alive. But Draubax is family. From one of my daughter’s
litters.”
“I know where it
is also, now,” observed the knight.
“That doesn’t
worry me. The butler knows his way down here too. I trust him to be
discreet. I tend to be secretive with humans just on general
principle and with dragons on long experience.”
He turned back to
the other dragon. “It is bad enough, young fellow, that you know
about my treasure now. What is worse, I am short a butt of wine!”
“It was only a
puncheon,” Grissol observed.
“Well, still
quite a lot of wine,” fumed Ransax. “Wine I paid for!” He
regarded the young dragon for some time, apparently pondering. “So
what do I do with you? Lock you up down here?”
“With the hoard?
He might enjoy that.”
The great dragon
started to snicker. It grew into guffaws. “Indeed he would! Well,
come along upstairs, boy, and we’ll think about this.”
Draubax quietly
followed them back to the library. There, his grandfather suddenly
demanded, “Show me your human shape!”
The young dragon
eyed Grissol. “In front of him?”
“Think of him as
family. Your dear old Uncle Grissol.”
Said uncle harumphed
rather loudly. Draubax simply shrugged and slowly began to change,
growing smaller, bat-like wings becoming arms, tail and nose
shortening. It took a few minutes before a chubby teenage boy, fairly
normal aside from his stub of a tail, stood before them.
Ransax looked him
over. “Very well. Until I tell you otherwise, you will remain in
that form, my boy.” His voice became a couple tones lower and
decidedly more menacing. “And you’d better behave or I’ll cut
off your tail!”
The lad gasped. In a
whispered aside—one the dragon-boy could undoubtedly hear—Ransax
told his friend, “He wouldn’t be able to return to his dragon
form till it grew back. In a decade or two. It’s sort of our
connection to our other self.
“Greeves,” he
called. “Come in here, will you?”
The butler entered
at once. He gave the naked boy but the slightest of glances. “Sir?”
“The lad here will
be staying with us a while. Fix him up with a room, will you? And see
if you can find him some clothes.” He turned back to his grandson.
“Hmm, you should have a human name, shouldn’t you? Ever use one?”
“No, sir.”
Draubax might have seemed offended were he not already so cowed.
“How about Drab?”
suggested Grissol Greenmeadows.
“Splendid! Drab
you are.”
“Do I have a say?”
asked the newly-named Drab.
“Absolutely not.
Now run along and do what Greeves tells you.”
“That was
interesting,” commented Grissol, once the two had departed. “Always
wondered about how you changed. Ha, I guess I still do!”
“Most
understandable, Greenmeadows. You see, we don’t change in quite the
sense you’re probably thinking. We keep our alternate forms in, um,
what you might call another world, and switch them out. What looks
like a transformation is really one body going away and another
coming.
“Hmm. That
actually makes a sort of sense.”
“Don’t I always
make sense?” inquired Ransax.
Grissol ignored the
question. “Other worlds, eh? I say, do werewolves do the same sort
of trick?”
“They do, indeed,
except in their case the wolf demon already existed in another world
and became entangled with a mortal human.”
“Oh! Hmm, could
you cut off their tails to cure them?”
“Doesn’t work
quite the same way, I’m afraid. Now what am I going to do with that
dragonling? I can’t let him go spreading stories about my horde or
how he tricked me. And I don’t much want him living with me, family
or not.”
“Your daughter’s
boy, you say? Does this mean you had a wife at some point?”
“I still do. We
mate for life but can not stand to live with our mates for very long.
So we visit from time to time. During the mating season, of course,
but also we sometimes simply miss each other and our families.” His
sigh might have suggested he missed that family right then. Or it
might have meant something else entirely. “I should probably let
them know where Draubax is.”
“Drab, you mean.”
“Drab, indeed. It
can wait. Annex should keep a better eye on her boy but I remember
well how rebellious young dragons are at that age. That’s why a
fair number don’t get past that age.”
Sir Grissol had a
feeling Draubax might not if he spent much time in the cave of his
grandfather. “How about letting him come and stay with me a few
days? Get him out of your hair, so to speak. Or scales.”
Ransax gave him a
most skeptical look. “Are you sure of that?”
“How much trouble
could he be?” At once he told himself it was a stupid question.
Teenage boys, whether human or dragon, were, well, teenage boys.
“I’ll make him my esquire.”
“That’s rather
impetuous. But so be it.”
“If young Drab is
willing,” Grissol added.
“Whether he is or
not,” came the dragon’s reply. “Greeves! Get that boy in here!”
An hour later, the
unwilling Drab walked beside Grissol, who led his horse. He had found
the dragon-boy had no idea of how to ride, nor how to do much of
anything human. Rarely had Drab been beyond the mountains and the
company of other dragons. Greeves had found him a kilt and blouse,
both at least three sizes too large, and a straw hat for his big
round head. The hair on that head was thick and black. The face below
it was sullen.
But he was beginning
to take interest in the things they passed, despite himself. Women,
in particular. They continued, neither in any hurry, to the River
Acerola, the border between Pitanga and Carambola, and the wooden
toll bridge spanning it.
“So who be this?”
asked the man at the turn-pike, giving the boy a friendly but curious
look. Strangers were far from common. Moreover, the lad would be
something to gossip about later at the tavern.
“My new esquire,
Master Drab. I say, does he get the children’s rate?”
The soldier shook
his head. “Too big. That’ll be tuppence for the both of you and a
farthing for Battercap. Not making old Batter carry you today, eh? I
reckon she appreciates that.”
There might have
been a veiled comment on the knight’s ample midsection in that but
he chose to ignore it and led boy and horse across. Stepping onto
solid ground, he told Drab, “We’re in the kingdom where I live
now. It’s not far to my keep.”
“Then we’re not
in Grandfather’s country anymore? What’s it called?”
“Pitanga. But
you’re definitely not beyond his reach.” He noted the sobering
effect that had and went on. “You may be ignorant of most things
knightly—or even human—but I think you are an enterprising lad.
The way you got into your grandfather’s cave is evidence of that!”
For the first time,
Grissol saw a smile on the boy’s face. “It was a pretty good
trick, wasn’t it?”
“It would have
been if you’d thought it through and had a way to leave his cave.”
“With his
treasure!” Drab beamed at that thought.
Grissol didn’t
think much of it. An irate Ransax would not make a good neighbor.
Drab was looking at women again. Girls this time. From the corner of
his eye, he watched a pair pass them on the path.
“I’ve never seen
a girl up close before,” he said, perhaps a bit wistfully. “I
wonder how they look without their clothes.”
“You’re not the
first.” Apparently, along with a human form went a human nature and
a human interest in the opposite sex. “You know, they were looking
at you too.”
“They were?” He
might have puffed out his chest just a bit.
“They were. I
would recommend you not show them your tail, however. Here’s my
place. Greenmeadows Manor.”
Drab politely
avoided being critical of the little manor house. “I’ll, um, live
here? For a while?”
“If you wish.
There’s really nothing to stop you from changing back into a dragon
and flying away, is there? I mean, Ransax might be peeved at your
disobedience but he wouldn’t go after you.”
“And cut off my
tail?” The boy smirked. “I don’t think so. It might be best to
keep Grandpa happy though. For a while, as I said. Are there girls
here?”
“There’s a whole
kingdom full of them.”
“Good,” said
Grissol’s new esquire, and followed him in.
appears in Lands
Far Away 2021
