Stn. George & The Dragon

2007-11-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

2007-11-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

ERY LATE THE NEXT MORNING, Xandra the donkey gave up standing between the shaves of the cart waiting to be harnessed and wandered off to graze on the tufts of weed that grew near the quiet campsite. Soft moans issued from beneath the draped canopy tent but they did not seem to indicate pain. It was not, in fact, until the next day that they moved their campsite.

Over the next several days, the campsite moved less frequently and shorter distances.

As the traveling trio progressed along the dessert road, laughter, singing, the playing of the dragonslayer’s whistle, and the ringing of bells that the gypsy wove into Xandra’s mane accompanied them. There may have been other travelers that they passed on this sparsely traveled road, but they were as quickly forgotten as they were encountered. At night, Selah and Steven would spend hours staring into each other’s eyes before they joined together to dance and play music. As often as not, they tumbled into bed with the music still echoing from the nearing mountains.

The mountains themselves seemed strange to Steven. They smoked.

For all his life, Steven had seen the mountain of the dragon from his village where belches of smoke would occasionally burst forth. It had been across the wide river in the distance. He knew that at last he was approaching his dragon. As the days progressed, he became more agitated, pushing Selah to move ahead on days when she would rather camp early and dance.

He had managed to almost forget the dragon in her company. The vision of being a dragonslayer was more an abstract idea than job he was prepared to do. He knew in his mind that his village had already been saved from the dragon the day he left. But would they be able to hold their freedom if the dragon continued to belch smoke and flame across the river, or would they quietly slip back into their fears. For once, he had no words to put into a story that would describe his turmoil.

One day, as they neared the smoking mountain, Selah sat down beside the road and refused to go on. Much to Steven’s surprise, Xandra the donkey sat back in his traces and refused to move as well. With a last glance up at the mountain, Steven relented and made camp.

After they had eaten, Selah rose to dance. At first her motions were barely detectable. A cymbal chimed and then was silent. Her foot came forward and then was still. A cymbal chimed again. It was as if the motions of her dance were being drawn out to extend till eternity.

Had she started her normal vigorous dance, Steven might have succeeded in remaining aloof as he thought about his doom. But the measured interruptions to silence drew his eyes to her. He looked at her feet and noted the delicate scratches they made in the dust as she beat their cadence. Her hips, swaying softly moved barely more than the breeze that began to arise.

His eyes trailed upward around the curve of her breasts and along the sinuous bare arms to the fingertips that clinked together with the chime of the cymbals. Her neck met her shoulders in a tiny depression that Steven thought he could spend a lifetime exploring. Above this, her hair whipped across her face as she turned her head, showing him the profile he had grown so quickly to love.

He absently reached for his whistle and put it to his lips. At its first piercing sound, Selah spun to face him and their eyes locked. The dance progressed gaining fervor slowly, the tensions of the day and Steven’s doubts dissolving in the movements they made as they pursued each other around the fire dancing faster and faster.

When the dance climaxed, Steven reached for his beloved. But rather than collapse with him into their nest of blankets, she pushed him down and stood over him.

“Tonight, Steven George,” she said, “you will listen. I will Once Upon a Time you. Or twice, or as often as you will,” she laughed. It was a sound Steven wished he could hear forever. “You have become confused as we traveled closer to the mountain. You do not wish to leave me, but you cannot bring yourself to forsake your mission. You have become obsessed with slaying the dragon, who, in truth, never meant you harm in the first place. Therefore, listen with your ears. Listen with your heart. For time is a twisting path. We follow it ever forward and no matter what turning we take, we come to where we are.”

The Inconsolable Longing

NCE UPON A TIME, when the world was young, there was a dragon named Siranith. This dragon was born from the world egg and for thousands of years lay wrapped around its shell at the heart of the earth. But the dragon had an ache in her heart. It started as a small discomfiture… a sigh. It grew to a tear. And finally it settled into her as a great inconsolable longing for something more than the empty shell could offer.

Now it was not clear to Siranith what would satisfy this longing. She recognized it only as a deep inconsolable desire for something more. And so, as time passed, Siranith began to stir for “Surely,” she thought, “if I do not go seek for what is calling me, I will die where I lie.”

Her first stirring shook the earth, and when she emerged from the ground, it split open before her. For the first time she inhaled the cool moist air of the world.

Then she sneezed and a gout of fire spouted from her and charred a thousand trees in its path. She covered her mouth and apologized to the trees, but there was naught that she could do to make them grow again. This new sadness temporarily displaced the inconsolable longing. She had meant no harm, but by simply emerging from her shell had caused destruction in her path.

She ran from the charred forest and her footsteps gouged craters where water gathered and became great lakes. Where her tail dragged behind her, rivers ran. Where the soil was kicked up from her feet, mountains grew.

Then Siranith spread her wings and flew. With the first beat of her wings, hurricanes blew across the face of the earth.

She screeched toward the heavens and the burst of flame set light to the stars and her tears fell like rain on the earth below her.

And then a wonderful thing happened. Where the tears fell, new life sprang forth. Trees, flowers, grasses. All manner of animals came to feast on the abundance, and there among the creatures of the earth was man.

When Siranith beheld mankind, she knew the source of her inconsolable longing. She longed to run free upon the earth, to love, and to live.

Siranith’s first attempts to talk to people met with disaster. The two-leggeds could not see the dragon for the fire and, alas, many were consumed like the trees. Siranith fled again.

Siranith second attempted to talk to the people by painting the sky with fire. The people fled from the fire and sought shelter among the rocks. So Siranith wept and the rains fell, but people rushed into caves and built houses to block out even the water that caused their crops to grow.

At last, Siranith came to the realization that the people she so longed for could not see her because she was so huge. They could only see the fire and the rain, and this made them afraid. She realized she would have to get further and further away from them in order for them to see her at all. And so, Siranith flew higher and higher into the sky. She glanced back, but people scarcely looked up until she was so high that stars collected on her wings. And when she looked down upon the people she loved she saw at last that they pointed into the night sky and said “Behold the dragon.”

But now, although Siranith could see the people and they could see her, she was so far removed from them that her longing began to grow again.

There was no way, she reasoned, that she could talk to them or truly love them as long as she was a dragon and they were human. Only by becoming human could she find the love she so longed for.

Thousands of years passed as Siranith felt the ache in her heart grow ever stronger. Stars fell from her wings, some blazing across the night sky until people no longer recognized her when they lifted their eyes to the heavens. Even her tears seemed not to reach them when she wept in despair. Only by becoming human, she thought over and over again.

And so, bit by bit, Siranith began to move back toward the earth. She chose carefully the place where she would return, far from where people usually came. It was a dry and barren place and she crawled silently back into the womb of the earth beneath a mountain to reforge herself as a human.

And there she lay until she emerged from her cave as a woman.

It was not a complete transformation. Where her breath had been fire, now her spirit was fire. Where her tears had been fertile, now her womb could bear fruit. Where her feet had scraped rivers and lakes and mountains, now they danced across the fields.

“Now!” she declared to herself. “Now I can find that for which my heart has so long yearned. I will find love.”

But it was not so easy. In her absence fear and hatred had grown on the earth and love was hard to find. And even when she found lovers, they were short-lived compared to the thousands of years she possessed. In despair she returned to her mountain to emerge only occasionally and seek for love. Her dragon fire, still buried in the mountain, seeped forth as the longing grew ever more fierce.

But still she comes out to dance across the earth, alone and lonely, hoping that one day a man will emerge to dance with her.

The gypsy lay beside Steven George and he could feel the heat radiate from her. He turned to kiss her lips and was caught again in the depths of her eyes. She held him there and whispered.

“You have reached the mountain, Steven George. But it is only the dragon’s fire that remains there. Her heart lies in your arms.”

“I can see the truth in this story,” said Steven.

As he gazed into her green eyes he thought the pupils lengthened to slits, but when he blinked they were round again.

N THE EARLY LIGHT of the morning, Steven George rose from the arms of his lover and faced the mountain. The wind had sprung up in the night and tugged at his hat. He took it from his head. Then he flung it into the morning breeze.

The winds caught the hat and it ascended. High on the mountain he could see it silhouetted against the glow of fire. Higher still it soared until it was only a speck and then nothing at all. He returned to Selah where she lay and welcomed him back into her arms.

“Here is where I belong,” said Steven. “And whether to a mountain, or to a desert, to an ocean or to a city, I will walk the endless road with you, my love.”

She smoothed his hair.

“Where is your hat?”

“What need have I of a hat if I have already found my dragon?” he said. Then he pointed back toward the mountain where he had flung it and the wind had carried it.

There was a distant rumbling of thunder that grew until the ground around them shook. Then the mountain exploded and fire, ash, and air shot into the sky. The dust rained down around them as the wind knocked them from their feet.

When the shockwaves subsided, Steven, Selah and Xandra picked themselves up and gazed at the remains of the mountain. The blast and the prevailing wind were carrying the debris north, out over the desert. As the dust blew away the ragged tooth of the mountain still smoked, but it seemed the smoke of dying embers.

Steven wrapped his arms around Selah and they embraced.

“I’m glad we got down to this side of the mountain before that happened,” Selah said. “Shall we continue.”

“It’s a long road,” Steven said. “I’m glad I am traveling it with you, Madame Selah Walinska. Or should I call you Siranith?” he smiled at her.

“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Who is Siranith?”

They hitched Xandra to the cart and walked off into the south.

IME IS A PATH THAT WE FOLLOW, and all paths lead to where we are. And once upon a path of time, a storyteller walked with his beloved, whom he teasingly called the dragon lady. Her green eyes flashed at him, but when he looked into their depths he saw only the peace and love that consoled his deepest longings.

If you, too, should travel this path, you might find a small marker near an extinct volcano. Scratched in rude letters on the stone are the words:

Here Stⁿ George Mastered His Dragon.

THE END

This story is dedicated to my loving wife who missed her Once Upon a Time last Christmas while I was writing mysteries and without whom there would be no Happily Ever Afters.

Chapter 22
Table of Contents

Chapter Twenty-Two

2007-11-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

ANDRA THE DONKEY LOVED THE ROAD. When Steven and Selah awoke in the morning, the little donkey was already standing between the shaves of the cart waiting to be harnessed. Steven and Selah looked at each other, both blushing slightly. Steven dared a quick look into her eyes and was almost lost in their emerald green depths.

They busied themselves with breakfast, hitched the impatient donkey to the cart and began the journey again. Walking with Selah, Steven forgot that he was lost. Had the wisewoman not told him that all roads led to his dragon. He might not know where he had been anymore, Steven reasoned, but he still knew where he was going. As the merchant had correctly reminded him, in his stories the hero never returns home.

Selah was pleasant company and was delightful to hold as they slept. Steven suddenly found himself thinking more about his companion than about his journey. It was a surprise to him when Selah said, “Now that we are on the road again, you owe me a story, Steven George. What will you tell me?”

Steven thought about the stories he had told over his journey and they all seemed to pale against Selah’s tale of the endless road.

“Would you have a tale of knights and maidens?” he asked. “Kings and thieves or fools and ghouls?”

“No,” said Selah. “As you have had the story of Xandra, I ask for the story of your hat.”

“My hat?” Steven asked, genuinely surprised. He had almost forgotten about the monstrosity on his head. “You can’t be serious!”

“Come now,” said Selah. “You wear a peaked hat decorated with feathers and snakeskin. It has a bone whistle that you play “charmingly.” It has a king’s service emblem and a pilgrim’s talisman intertwined. Surely such a remarkable hat carries a remarkable story. I would have it.”

Finally Steven looked squarely into her eyes. They did not sap him as the thief’s had, but gave him courage and drew him to her. “I cannot deny you, my lady,” he said.

The Implausible Hat

NCE UPON A TIME, at least a million steps ago, there lived a man who would slay a dragon. He did not know for sure if he had volunteered for the task or if he had been chosen. He did not know when he would be called upon to slay the dragon. He did not even really know what a dragon was, aside from the fact that it was fierce and to be feared and it breathed fire. But he knew from his earliest memories that he was the one who would one day be sent to slay the dragon. And he thought he knew enough to succeed.

How wrong he was. This is how it came to be.

Long before the dragonslayer was born, an itinerant missionary came to the village of Firsthope preaching of a strange god who demanded the worship of the people. The people had never heard of such a thing and it seemed silly to them. They tended the fields and their flocks and lived lives of peace and contentment. The idea of a being who required sacrifice and obedience when they had always lived in freedom and generosity was ridiculous.

They treated the missionary courteously, but told him quite frankly that his god was not welcome to rule Firsthope, but that he could come to visit if he so desired and the people would gladly give him a feast. While this should have satisfied the missionary, he took offense at the people of Firsthope and stood at the edge of the village shouting back at it.

“I shake the dust of your village off my sandals. You who will not hear will suffer. Pain and torment will be the lot of those who live here and the judgment of the dragon shall be visited on you. In the day that you least expect it, the dragon will swoop down on this village. The dragon will be your doom. The dragon will eat your flocks and burn your fields. There will be great pain and suffering in Firsthope and it will be held up to the world as an example of what happens to those who will not hear the words of the dragon.” And with those words he turned his back on Firsthope and walked away.

The people of Firsthope laughed at the foolishness of the missionary. “Who had ever heard of a dragon?” they asked. “This, surely, is the product of one man’s imagination.” And the people went about their happy lives, sowing their crops and tending their flocks.

But the words of the missionary were like seeds scattered on the ground, and while most fell on the path and were trampled underfoot, some found fertile soil and began to grow. The fruit of this seed was vague uneasiness. Neighbors began to fear each other’s prosperity instead of rejoicing in it. A child who disobeyed his parents was said to “have the dragon in him.” Children were told “if you aren’t good, the dragon will get you.” And when a person died, he was said to have “gone to the dragon.”

After many years, the dragon that the people of Firsthope had never seen, ruled over the village. Where they had ranged far and wide over the fields and hills, they now kept close to the village for fear that they would encounter the dragon. The village drew in upon itself for fear of the dragon.

One day, many years after the missionary had planted his seeds in the village, a young maiden became pregnant. This was not an uncommon occurrence, and was typically celebrated with the woman and her mate. Each new child was an occasion for celebration in the village of Firsthope.

But the maiden refused to say who the father of her child was and no young man of the village came forward to claim it. This created great confusion among the people and people spoke in hushed tones that she was carrying the dragon’s child.

Now the village elder came forth to the people. He was a clever man and had always judged the people fairly. But he could see that talk of the dragon’s child was causing fear among the people. He knew that he must capture the passion of the people or that they would tear the village apart under threat of the dragon’s child, and that the child would not be safe in the village.

The elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman of the village met together secretly and devised a plan. On the day of the child’s birth, they came before the people and called for a great feast. When people gathered together, the elder rose to speak.

“People of Firsthope. For generations we have lived under the threat of destruction by the dragon. We gaze across the river to the distant mountain where smoke rises and run to our homes in fear. But today we have new hope. The elders of this village have passed down a secret prophecy from generation to generation, for so long that it was almost forgotten until the shaman and wisewoman guided this elder into a trance to commune with the elders of the past. In this trance, I have recovered the prophecy.” The people were amazed. The elder seemed to go into a trance again as he chanted the words of the prophecy.

“Hear, o people of Firsthope. It is not in vain that you call yourselves by that name, for this is the birthplace of hope for all people. In the day of despair I come to you. When the judgment of the dragon seems to be ready to fall, I will bring you new hope. Behold a child will be born of no man to a maiden without mate. This child will grow into wisdom and stature and as a man he will go forth to end the captivity of the people of Firsthope. Yes, he will go to the very mouth of the dragon and end its threat forever. He will master the people’s fear and tame their unrest. The dragonslayer will go forth and the people will live.”

There was a hushed silence over the people of Firsthope as the idea sank in. There was first a flicker of recognition and then a blossoming of hope within the village. The elder continued, bringing the newborn child to the dais with him.

“People of Firsthope, today is born to you a child who will free you of your fears. I present to you Steven George the Dragonslayer. And this day, in his honor, I rename this village, Newhope, for he is the newness that will overwhelm the fears of our village.” There was great cheering then and the village celebrated long into the night.

The maiden was lodged with the elder and the child was raised as if he were the elder’s own son. Everyone in the village helped in his upbringing. The shaman taught him seeing, the wisewoman taught him of herbs, the huntsman taught him to hunt, the cook taught him to prepare food. For all his life he was honored and the maidens of the village, when he was old enough, competed with each other to become his lover. His life was good.

Then came the day when the elder was very old and the dragonslayer was rich in years, that a sheep was found slaughtered in the field in the midst of a charred circle. The elder came before the people with the shaman and the wisewoman, and they called the dragonslayer to them, saying, “Steven George, dragonslayer, the time has come. The dragon has struck in our fields and it is time for you to free us forever of this threat. Go forth, therefore, to master the dragon and the great threat that has been held over us for generations.”

And so it was that the dragonslayer began his journey.

As he journeyed, he mistook a duck, a melon farmer, a tinker, a dwarf, a knight, and a thief for the dragon. He even briefly mistook a dancing gypsy for the vicious beast. In truth, even though he had seen pictures engraved, he had no idea what his dragon would look like, nor how he should meet it.

When he left his home village, he was given gifts by the elder, hunter, wisewoman, and shaman of the village that had been his entire world all his life. These he carried proudly. He was also given a ridiculous pointed sheepskin hat at the end of summer, which he wore because it was a gift from his mother and he would not be ashamed of anything he received from her hands.

Now the first day he journeyed away from his home, he thought he saw the dragon take flight, but it was a duck eating a serpent, eating the duck. He tried to get an arrow nocked in his bow in time to kill the beast, but before he could shoot, the beast plummeted to the ground. In his haste to discover the wonder, he fell on the animals and killed both with his impact. Unwilling to waste the gift he had found, even though it was not the dragon, he roasted the duck and smoked the snake meat. As he was ready to burn the offal, he noticed the duck feathers and thought he would improve his hat by adding one jauntily in the band. Then seeing that one was good, he added many. He used the snakeskin to tie them in place as a hatband and fastened it with the pilgrim’s talisman given to him by the shaman.

Deep down inside, he was ashamed of the hat and felt that if he decorated it, it would become his own and he would wear it defiantly. Whenever he met a stranger on the road, he told another story about how the hat had come to be. In one village, an herb-woman placed a bone in the hatband. When the would-be dragonslayer ran, the bone whistled.

He served a knight and the knight bound the king’s emblem to the hat to show that he had served. And each place that the dragonslayer went he told a new story. The hat was his decoy. For as long as people were focused on the hat, he could preserve his weapons, his knife, his bow, and ultimately his sword. They would be his sure defense against the dragon, even though he told people about the hat.

But one sad night, the dragonslayer came upon a thief. That night, the thief convinced him to tell the story of his knife, and having done so, the thief stole the dragonslayer’s weapons, dragon knife and sword, horse, and money. So, at last, the dragonslayer was left with no weapon but the implausible hat.

Now the dragonslayer wanders the endless road, searching for his dragon, armed only with the implausible hat you see on his head and his wit as a storyteller.

The gypsy looked at Steven for a long time as they stood for a moment in the road with the donkey impatiently wanting to move forward. He looked boldly into her eyes and saw all the possibilities of what life could be. Then she smiled, and finally she laughed.

“You lie!” she exclaimed. “No story so fantastic could be true.”

“I’m not lying,” Steven said indignantly. Of all possible responses to the story, he had not expected this. “I was telling a story.”

“And a fine story, dragonslayer. I have never heard the likes,” she laughed. “You pull at my heart-strings. I am drawn to you like a lodestone to steel. Come with me and be my companion on the endless road.”

Steven looked into her eyes and saw the warmth in their green depths, and readily agreed.

Chapter 21
Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-One

2007-11-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

UST AS THE SUN ROSE over the eastern horizon, the donkey began to bray a complaint of hunger and Steven awoke to find Madame Selah Welinska wrapped in his arms beside the dying embers of last night’s fire. She stretched luxuriously turned her face toward him and smiled, then snuggled back down into his arms. He gently extracted himself from her embrace and went to tend the braying donkey.

When he reached the animal he discovered that it was tethered just out of reach of a tasty batch of thistles. He unfastened the lead and let the donkey graze on the thistles.

“I don’t know why I bothered to tether you,” Steven said as he reached for sand and weeds to curry the back of the donkey while it ate. “You never go anyplace and I don’t know why you are with me.”

“That is easy,” said Madame Selah Walinska coming up beside him. “You’ve brought him to rescue a maiden in distress.” She pointed at her cart and for the first time Steven noticed that it had a harness, but that the gypsy had no animal with which to pull the cart.

“What happened to your draft beast?” Steven asked, not knowing if had been pulled by donkey, horse, or ox.

“I was careless,” said Selah. “I did not securely tether the donkey and when I awoke one morning it was gone. I searched as far as I could from here without leaving my few possessions behind, but to no avail. The poor beast was probably eaten by coyotes or taken as a stray by a caravan all the way back at the Tasmyrica fork.”

“I bought a horse in Byziatica,” said Steven. “When I awoke, I had a donkey who docilely follows me wherever I go. If you would like, we can share his labors and hitch him to your cart. I have little to carry and the donkey is strong.”

“The donkey, the donkey,” said Selah. “Doesn’t the poor fellow have a name?”

“No,” Steven said. “I suppose not.”

“Then he shall have one from me,” she replied. She stepped to the side of the donkey and it turned to nuzzle her gently. “Ah yes, faithful creature,” she said. “You have come to the aid of this weary traveler. Would you take as payment the name of Xandra?” Steven was certain he saw the animal bob its head up and down in agreement as if he understood. From that moment the donkey was known as Xandra.

After they had breakfasted and cleaned their camp, they hitched Xandra to the cart. Steven placed his pack in the cart along with the gypsy’s belongings, and they struck out southeastward on the road.

“How shall we entertain ourselves on the road, Steven George the Dragonmaster?” Selah asked as they walked companionably along with the donkey leading the way. “Shall we tell stories?”

“Do you mean to Once Upon a Time each other?” Steven asked. He had not bothered to offer to trade stories since the night with the thief, and was not sure that he could tell a story now that his possessions had been stolen.

“Once, twice, or as many times as you like,” said Selah. “Come now, what story would you like to hear from me?” she asked.

“I should like to know about Xandra,” said Steven. “How did you come by this name to give to our fine friend?”

The Endless Road

NCE UPON A TIME, at the beginning as stories go, there lived a great bricklayer named Xandra. Xandra was a fine craftsman and was in great demand throughout the land in which he lived. People said that the houses he built were built to last forever. The walls he made would never come down. People wanted Xandra to build them houses. The king wanted him to build a wall around the city. The liveryman wanted Xandra to build a stable, and the clergyman wanted him to build a church.

Xandra was a proud and vain man. The buildings and walls that he built were strong and beautiful. He took care and pride in his craftsmanship. As the city grew with houses and garden walls, churches, palaces, stables, and inns, people found themselves more and more often needing to go around the very wals that he had built in order to get from one place to another. They would meet each other and say “I would have been here sooner, but I had to go around Xandra’s walls.”

During the dry season one year, the winds picked up and encountered Xandra’s walls in the city. But the winds could not pass. Xandra proudly boasted that even the wind had to go around Xandra’s walls. With the wind came sand and tumbling weeds and scraps of clothing lost by careless travelers. All had to go around Xandra’s walls.

During the rainy season one year, the citizens discovered that the water, too, had to go around Xandra’s walls. The packed earth streets of his city began to run with water. The sand and weeds and scraps of clothing that collected in corners during the windy season were washed before the waters. The streets ran with mud and people had difficulty passing through.

Xandra boasted that even the water had to go around Xandra’s walls. People, however, complained. Many wanted to begin tearing down Xandra’s walls so that the wind and the water could pass more freely. But Xandra’s walls stood firm.

It was, however, in the early summer that things came to an unpleasant head. The sun that had shone so pleasantly on the people of the city could not go around Xandra’s walls. The walls had reached so high that only shadows fell upon the people of the city and they were sorely vexed.

But Xandra boasted that even the sun had to go around Xandra’s walls. He was proud of his accomplishment and thought to himself, “I am more powerful than the wind, stronger than the water, and more clever than the sun. Perhaps I should be the king.”

Now people became alarmed because Xandra was so boastful. Eventually news reached the king of Xandra’s boast and the king called together his council and they considered what should be done with the boastful bricklayer.

“If Xandra became king, we should all live within walls and never be free to move about,” said one councilor.

“If Xandra’s walls become any better, we shall all live within walls and never be free to move about,” said another.

But the king was wise and told his councilors that Xandra was to be summoned before the throne with all pomp and circumstance. Xandra was to be told that all the kingdom was to be called to witness the way the king honored the bricklayer. Then the king retired to his chamber taking none with him but the court jester.

Banners were flown from all the highest parapets. Heralds strolled up and down the streets of the city calling out the news. Everyone was summoned to the king’s presence on the appointed day to witness how the king would honor Xandra.

On the appointed day the people gathered in the courtyard of the brick palace. A great band of drums and bugles preceded Xandra through the streets and when he entered the courtyard, the people threw rose petals in his path. Boldly, Xandra strode up the steps to the king’s throne on a high dais where everyone could see him.

“Here ye, subjects loyal to the land,” the king’s herald shouted when Xandra had made the most perfunctory of bows. “The king wishes to honor the famous bricklayer Xandra. Xandra’s walls enclose the city, the palace, our cathedrals, and our homes. Mighty are the bricks of Xandra. The wind may not pass where Xandra has made a wall, but must go around. The water may not pass where Xandra has made a wall, but must go around. The sun may not pass where Xandra has made a wall, and must go around. Great are the walls of Xandra and great is the bricklayer Xandra!”

The crowds cheered and the king stood to give Xandra a laurel wreath to wear on his head. The crowds hushed as the king stretched out his hand. So all was silent when the jester began laughing uncontrollably. The king withdrew his hand with the laurel wreath still in it. Xandra turned bright red and glared at the insolent jester.

“What do you find so funny, jester?” bellowed the king.

“Why that you do such honor to a bricklayer,” said the jester. “He isn’t that great.”

“Does not the wind have to go around Xandra’s walls?” asked the king.

“Yes,” replied the jester.

“Does not the water have to go around Xandra’s walls?” asked the king.

“Yes,” replied the jester.

“Does not the sun have to go around Xandra’s walls?” asked the king.

“Yes,” answered the jester.

“Then is not Xandra great?” asked the king.

“Not so much,” answered the jester. Everyone waited in silence for the jester to continue, sure that he had overstepped his bounds. “Well, look,” said the jester. “The wind has to go around any wooden barn in its path. The water must part for any stone. And the sun cannot defeat any tree. If Xandra was to prove his greatness, he would build a wall that the earth could not pass. For look around you. The earth goes wherever it will.”

Now the crowd was silent. The king glared at the jester. Xandra glared at the jester. Then the king glared at Xandra.

“Is it true that the earth goes where it will and passes your walls without hindrance?” Xandra was silent in the presence of all. Then he spoke up.

“I shall not accept this honor the king has offered to me,” said Xandra. “I shall prove, first, that I am the greatest bricklayer of all time. I shall return to this dais when I have built a wall that the earth cannot pass.” And with that, Xandra left the king’s presence amid the silence of the crowd. When he was safely away, from the courtyard, the loyal subjects of the king let out a great cheer, for Xandra’s boasting had been silenced.

Now Xandra was upset. He went to his workshop made of brick. The walls were strong, but they sat upon the earth. The earth flowed where it would. Xandra kicked the wall and found how completely solid it really was. It did not yield to the wind, the water, the sun, or Xandra’s foot. But the earth went where it would.

Xandra examined all the walls he had built, and they were mighty. None would yield to the wind, the water, the sun, or Xandra’s foot. But the earth went where it would. For eight days, Xandra sat on the ground outside the city’s brick walls. He contemplated the wind. He contemplated the water. He contemplated the sun. He contemplate his injured foot. But most of all, he contemplated the earth. There was so much of it.

On the eighth day, Xandra rose from the shadow of the city’s brick wall and broke his fast. Then he went to his workshop and got his trowel and a load of bricks. He carted the bricks to the city gates and dumped them nearby. Then he returned for more, and more. With each load of bricks that he took to the city gates, people gathered to watch what the bricklayer would do next. When he had trundled eight loads of bricks to the city gates, Xandra set to work. He dug out a shallow path in the road before the gates and began to lay the bricks.

But, to the surprise of the people, he did not erect a wall like they had seen him build before. Instead, he lay a foundation along one side of the path, and built the wall horizontally. The higher he built it, the wider the brick path became. Soon, all the road before the city gates had been covered in brick. Xandra retired for the night and in the morning he toiled again and the path extended away from the city gates.

Each day, Xandra made the brick path a little longer until by the end of the eighth day, it extended to the horizon and it took a strong man half the morning to reach the end of it. Here, Xandra stayed and manufactured more bricks.

People coming toward the city with their carts, entered the gates exclaiming how easy it was to roll their carts along the brick road in front of the palace. They were so enthusiastic that the king went out on the road to where Xandra was making more bricks.

“Xandra,” said the king when they met, “this is a fine road you are building.” Xandra looked at the king.

“It is not a road sire,” he answered. “It is a wall that the earth must go around. Because the earth does not rise up in the air, the wall cannot be in the air. It must be a barrier to the very ground that would overwhelm it. When I have finished the wall around the earth, the earth will have to go around it and I will be the greatest bricklayer of all.”

And so the king let Xandra build, and people came to the cit from miles around because the road that led to it was paved with bricks and was easy to roll their carts on. The people extended the brick road into the city and when the water went around the walls, it no longer turned the streets to mud. The city and the king became wealthy beyond their dreams because people from all over the world wanted to walk on the brick road.

Xandra kept building his wall around the earth and soon he was lost to the memory of the people of the brick city. But to this day, he continues to build his wall, and we, the people of the road, follow it ever on-ward, for the road has no end.

“And that is why you have named the donkey Xandra?” asked Steven. “He travels the unending road.”

“Indeed he does,” said Selah. “As do we. As long as there is a road in front of us we will keep traveling, ever onward.” She scuffed her feet in the dirt of the road where they walked and in a moment had uncovered a series of bricks.

“It seems,” said Steven, “that the earth has gone around Xandra’s wall.” They laughed and continued on their journey together.

Chapter 20
Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty

2007-11-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

UARDS ROUSED STEVEN WITH A BOOT in his ribs. He lay in dirty straw and the guards were shouting at him to get up and be gone. The innkeeper of the Inn of the Lost Soul was standing behind the guards querulously complaining of the vagrant tramp in his stable.

“His master rode off early this morning complaining that the worthless page could fend for himself,” said the innkeeper. “He still owes a gold coin for lodging last night.”

“Where is your purse, fellow,” barked one of the guards. He snatched the little bag from around Steven’s neck and poured the contents out into his palm. “Nah!” exclaimed the guard. “Nothing but scraps of herbs.” He disdainfully tossed the last bits of the wisewoman’s herbs into the stall and pulled Steven to his feet. Another guard grabbed Steven’s pack and staff and pushed him out of the stall.

“What about the donkey?” the innkeeper asked. “I won’t keep feeding a worthless beast.” A guard dropped a lead rope into Steven’s hand and in moments Steven found himself in the street holding a lead rope, his pack and staff. “And don’t come back!” exclaimed the innkeeper as he slammed the door of the stable.

Steven stumbled after the guards who continued to push him toward the city gates. At the gate, they pushed him out and yelled, “Don’t come back to Byziatica, either,” said the guard.

“Wait a minute,” called another guard. Steven, bewildered over what was happening, halted and looked around. The guard held his Steven’s chin in a gauntleted hand and examined Steven’s hat. “This vagabond has served the king,” he said to his companion.” The other guard stepped forward.

“How did you earn this emblem on your hat?” he demanded.

“I served a company of knights on the road to Zannopolis,” Steven said. “They told me this would give me safe passage through Byziatica.”

“And so it should have,” said the guard. “How did you come to be in the stable of that unscrupulous innkeeper?”

“I was preparing to leave in the morning. Yesterday I purchased a horse from Pablo Ibin Arriaga. I am a dragonslayer and journey to find the dragon along the river to the south.”

“You purchased a horse and got a donkey,” said the guard. “You have no money and no weapons. You were so drunk that you’ve been robbed and now you must set out on your own with nothing. Who is this Pablo Ibin Arriaga?”

“He is a thief,” said Steven. “Not only of my goods, but of many wealthy homes in the city. He must be riding toward Zannopolis.”

The guards consulted with each other and after a bit one reached in a purse and gave Steven five silver coins. The other handed him a small knife, plain and not half so glorious as the knife the tinker had engraved.

“Well,” said the guard, “there is nothing we can do about your stolen goods, but this will see you onto the road. This is the southward caravan route, so you should be all right. Safe travels, dragonslayer.” With that they turned their backs on Steven and returned to the city.

Steven stood in the middle of the road thinking. Four hundred ninety thousand… No. Five hundred thousand… He went across a river and across a lake and by wagon. How long had he been in Byziatica?

Steven George the Dragonslayer, was lost.

He had a pack on his back that seemed much lighter than it had been. He had a staff, but no bow. In its place he held the lead rope for a donkey. With his head hanging, Steven shuffled off aimlessly on the southern road toward Tasmyrica.

He had no bow to hunt with, no powerful knife, no precious herbs, no sword, and no horse. Only the talisman given him by the knight that he wore on his ridiculous hat had saved him further harm at the hands of the guards. And he had mysteriously acquired a donkey—all this because he had ignored the advice of the tinker and had told a story about the knife instead of his hat. How would he ever fulfill his mission in this miserable state? He walked without counting his steps, no longer caring how far he was from home, for he knew now that he would never return.

Steven walked long into the night with the mournful donkey shuffling along behind him. At last he stopped beside a stream and camped for the night, turning the donkey loose and not bothering to build a fire. His dreams were troubled by how easily he had been deceived by the thief. And worse, how he had told the thief where Jasper the village idiot lived. But, he reasoned, he had not told the thief which direction to turn when he reached Zannopolis. Steven allowed himself his first smile when he thought of the thief, riding his fine horse, with the fine sword and knife at his side, joining the long line of knights headed north from Zannopolis as the merchant turned and headed back to the south along the western edge of the mountains. Perhaps the knights would find some use for him in their service.

With this encouraging thought, Steven woke to find that the donkey had not wandered away from him, but dozed peacefully standing nearby. He set a small fishtrap in the stream and built a fire. The smell of fish cooking in clay began to rise from his fire. He ate that night of the hot fishy flesh. He scrubbed the donkey with reeds from the stream until its coat shone like the knights’ chargers. The donkey dozed lazily under Steven’s ministrations and turned to nuzzle him often as he was cleaned and cared for.

The thief had left little to Steven. The pack still contained his bedroll and a scrap of oilcloth that had once held a sandwich from his lover. There was a pair of dry socks that he gladly changed to and washed his dirty ones. It was peaceful to engage in such domestic activities, and for some time, Steven thought he would simply stay in this spot. In the morning, however, the urge to move on overwhelmed him and he returned to the southward road.

VER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Steven met other travelers, a merchant caravan, and a band of soldiers. He traded services for coins or food, and provided food by trapping; but he carefully avoided the eyes of those he met. His skills with a cookpot soon proved most saleable. He acquired one of his own from another traveling tinker, but when he attempted to engage the tinker with questions about Armand Hamar, he was dismissed with a wave of a hand. “Faery stories and poppycock,” was all the tinker would say.

At last there came a fork in the road. Steven observed that most of the travelers turned to the left and went toward Tasmyrica. Ahead to the right he could see the desert road level out and descend into a barren wasteland. Camping at the crossroad, Steven traded for a water jug and supplies that would feed him if game proved scarce. These he loaded onto the donkey and in the morning set his face toward the desert, southwestward. Though called the desert road, the road did not go directly into the desert, Steven discovered, but skirted it in a long arc. This road he followed meeting only one northbound caravan over the next week.

Steven was searching for a good place to camp at the end of a day that had been hot in extreme. The donkey was weary and his water, refilled at the last spring two days earlier was running low. Steven and the donkey stood silently surveying the surrounding area from the top of a small rise when a tinkling of bells drifted faintly to his ears. He puzzled for a moment, but in the distance saw a small stand of low trees. Near the trees a shape moved, seeming to spin and then flare out vast wings.

His first thought, of course, was that he had found the dragon. This thought he immediately dismissed. He had now mistaken a melon farmer, a tinker, a dwarf, a knight, and a thief for a dragon and he would no longer be so easily deceived. Besides, he had no bow nor sword with which to challenge the dragon anyway. He led his faithful companion on toward the dancing figure and the tinkling bells.

When he was yet a hundred paces away, he could clearly see that a woman was dancing around a small fire. She twirled and spun, clinking small finger cymbals together. Occasionally the veils she wore flared out from her like wings and she dipped down and sprang up in her dance as if she were flying. Nearby, a small cart rested with a canopy drawn from it to form a modest tent.

Steven hailed her while he was yet some distance away so as not to startle her by suddenly appearing in her camp. She abruptly halted her twirling dance and stared at Steven defensively. Then she relaxed and motioned him to join her. He led his donkey to the camp to discover there was a spring that fed a small pool beneath the trees. He greeted the strangely dressed woman.

“Hail. I am Steven George,” he said. “I travel this road alone save for the company of this humble beast. May I rest here this night in the shelter of your trees and water my companion?”

The woman laughed. It was such a high and delightful sound that Steven was caught off guard and thought reflexively of wind blowing through the pines in the high mountains.

“Do you think I own these trees and this spring that you need my permission to camp here, Steven George?” she asked. “The road provides the shelter and as you are a guest of the road, you are no enemy of mine. I am Madame Selah Welinska. Welcome.”

Steven found the voice of the woman as enchanting as the thief’s eyes had been mesmerizing. He first wanted to close his ears so as not to be entrapped, but as soon as he thought of stopping her voice he was overwhelmed with desire to hear more of it. He led his donkey to the water and let it drink while he unloaded his modest belongings and set up camp across the fire from the lady’s tent. They chatted and Steven set his kettle on the fire and offered the lady a share of his meal which she willingly accepted. Each time she spoke he was more entranced with her voice and as he watched her he was hypnotized by the elegance of her fluid movement.

When they had eaten and darkness had fully fallen on their camp, Madame Selah Welinska set a small table between them and placed a silk cloth on it. From her cart she brought forth a crystal ball and set it on the cloth.

“Now,” she said, “let us look into the crystal to see who we really are.” She directed Steven to look into the ball with her and then she began to chant and sing softly. Steven looked deep within the crystal, and though he did not here her words, he saw images that were drawn from globe as she spoke.

“I see a lost soul,” said the gypsy. “Everything he thinks he needs has been taken from him and he has found that all he needs is what he is. He journeys the long road, no longer knowing from whence he has come nor, indeed, where his fate will lead him. He draws from great experience and lore to guide him through a world that is strange and sometimes unkind to him. Yet he continues on, for all roads lead to his dragon.” The crystal suddenly cleared as the gypsy stood and turned away from Steven.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You are a dragonslayer!”

“You could see all that in your crystal ball?” Steven asked incredulously. The gypsy laughed.

“No. I saw it in your walk as you came over the hill. I heard it in your voice as you called to me. I saw it in the shiny coat of your humble beast that follows you because you are kind, not because you lead him by a rope. I would see it in your eyes if you ever looked at me.”

Steven blushed and turned his face away. He was still unwilling to look into the eyes of another person.

“Perhaps if I had not the experience I have had, I would trust you to see that,” he said, “but the thief has robbed me of my trust.”

“You were born to master a dragon, Steven George,” she said. “Would you fear the eyes of a gypsy?” Still Steven looked away.

The lady laughed again, a teasing, playful laugh and began her twirling, joyful dance around the fire; her tinkling finger cymbals providing all the music she needed. Steven watched her dance and thought of the strange whistling the bone in his hat had made as he ran next to the knights. He removed the bone and examined it for the first time since the wisewoman of Lastford had placed it in his hatband. It had a slit in one end and three holes down its length. He blew at the slit, tentatively at first, and pleased by the sound it made began to cover and uncover the holes. Each time it made a different pitch and soon Steven was covering and uncovering the holes in time with the tinkling cymbals sending an eerie whistling into the night air.

As the whistle joined the bells, the gypsy’s dance became more and more sinuous until at one point Steven marveled at how snakelike she had become. They played their music and Steven joined in the dance until they were both so exhausted that they collapsed together in a heap and slept through until morning.

Chapter 19
Chapter 21

Chapter Nineteen

2007-11-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

EAVY WITH THE FEAST that the thief had ordered spread before them, Steven had difficulty focusing on what was being said. There had been considerably more ale served than Steven was used to. Pablo convinced Steven that in order to establish their position in the inn, they should arrive as a gentleman and his page. Since Pablo knew more about the conduct of civil affairs than Steven, he would be the gentleman, and Steven would be his page and confidante. As the gentleman’s page, it was up to Steven to pay the innkeeper for the feast and lodging while the thief continually invited others to join at their table.

As Steven cut his food, the thief noticed the knife with the dragon pattern.

“Steven George,” said the thief at last. “The company is in need of a story. As you owe me a story debt, I call upon you to tell us the story of that knife you use at the table.” At once, all eyes fell upon the knife that Steven held in his hand and there were exclamations over the beauty of the knife. Steven had prepared a story about his hat for the company and was surprised at the request.

“Wouldn’t you rather hear about my hat?” he asked. Those gathered at the table laughed.

“My poor page is recently from the country where stories are often told about the fantastic adventures they had with their hat,” laughed the thief. “No, fair page. No peasant hat stories for this company. Tell us instead of this beautiful knife, and how a simple page comes to have it.”

Steven looked around the company and in his state of disorientation brought on by too much food and ale they reminded him of nothing less than gathered predators descending on their prey. He took another sip of his ale and rose uncertainly to stand by the table.

The Miser’s Gift

NCE UPON A TIME, when grandfathers were young and paths had not yet wound away from the Castle of Minor Ordam, there lived a miserly despot named Grouse who ruled over all the land with a tight fist and a sharp tongue. Grouse was hated by all his subjects and by his overlords as well. He had many treasures in his castle and guarded them with fervor. It was said that the miser’s treasure room would be a sight to behold if only one could get to it. But the room was located in the center of the castle dungeons. It was locked by a huge padlock and chains held the bar in place. This room, in turn was reached by a staircase that had a locked door at both the bottom and the top. The staircase was in a private locked chamber that could only be reached through a door hidden in the master’s bedchamber. No one had ever been in the mysterious vault except the master, but tales of its glory circulated far and wide.

The peasants of Minor Ordam were so pressed that after their pleas to the miser had failed to win succor, the sent a delegation to the miser’s overlord, who in turn summoned a council of the lords around. They listened to the peasant’s complaint—how they were unable to feed their families because of the heavy taxes the miser imposed, how their children were unclothed in the winter because the miser took their wool.

First the lords thought they would tax the miser, but the miser just threatened more stringent duties on his people. Then the lords thought they would make war on the miser, but the cost of war is high and if the miser closed his gates they would have to siege the castle for months or maybe years before they could breach the walls. Finally, the lords came up with the idea to infiltrate the castle with their own man who would gain access to the miser’s treasury and distribute it back to the people with, of course, a fair share going back to the overlords. They searched far and wide for the right person when they found, at last, a thief who was willing to undertake the mission.

Now this thief had been known to the lords for many years, but had gone unpunished for his deeds because he could never be found with the stolen property. He continued to prosper amidst them as he continued steal from them. So they reasoned together that they could kill two birds with one stone by getting the thief to break the miser’s treasury, then to convict the thief at last for his crimes.

The thief had not survived for so long through idiocy. He was clever and saw through the lords’ plan immediately. But how could he avoid their clever trap? If he failed to breach the miser’s treasury, his clients would surely banish him. Yet if he did breach the treasury, they would convict him of theft and he would lose both his hands.

This thief’s name was Bárcenas. Bárcenas approached Castle of Minor Ordam with caution late one night. He silently scaled the walls of the castle and peeked over the parapet. All was dark and silent. He raced across the rooftops looking for guards and trying to find the master’s bedchamber. But looking from the outside was vain and as dawn began to clear the eastern skies, Bárcenas slipped out of the castle and away. This happened for two more nights with the same results. The thief was discouraged as he had found no way into the inner fortification. This would require a different approach.

The next day the thief went to the market in the city. He looked long and hard for something special. At last, in the back chamber of a metalsmith, the thief finally saw his salvation. It was a golden goblet. Runes were engraved around the lip of the beautiful goblet and the stem was fashioned in the shape of a dragon with unfurled wings. The golden flames that shot from the dragon’s mouth were so cunningly crafted that they looked hot to the touch. This was the pride of the smith’s workshop and he was cautious showing it to Bárcenas.

But the thief had no intention of stealing such a fine piece, for surely this would be known anywhere that he might try to sell it, and in his line of work collecting lovely art pieces was not practical. Instead, Bárcenas paid for the goblet. The price nearly beggared the thief, but he knew where he could get more coins. There was only one dragon goblet, however.

The next day, Bárcenas arrived at the Castle of Minor Ordam when the first peasants were entering with their goods for sale in the market and paying their taxes to the guards on duty. He took with him a young man he had bribed on the streets of the city to act as his page. As they approached the guards, the page stepped boldly forth and declared, “Make way for my master, the honorable Duke of Skulheleton, heir to the kingdom of the underlands and ambassador to the fabled Castle of Minor Ordam. We seek audience with His Glorious Lordship Grouse to pay him honor and bring him gifts.”

The guards nearly fell over one another in attempting to usher the thief and his page into the presence of Lord Grouse. They were offered wine and food, given a fine room and were encouraged to bathe before they met with the master. The thief briefly considered slaying the lord and claiming the castle for himself, but the power of the overlords made him cautious. They would not willingly suffer a man of his reputation as an underlord. At last, they were summoned to the hastily cleaned throne room of Lord Grouse.

The master was seated on an elevated chair that the thief saw was thrown together on wooden boxes to give it more height. It had been covered by what appeared to be nothing less than a feather blanket retrieved from a long-unused bedchamber.

The thief politely knelt before the throne as the page announced his presence. Then he rose to address the master.

“Oh most elevated master of this most glorious house, your humble servant is honored by your gracious hospitality. I bring greetings from Glendal, King of all Skulhelletan and your faithful servant. The king has long sought to have audience with the honored Lord Grouse, but has been ill for many years and cannot travel. Therefore he bade me as his heir apparent to seek the wisdom and counsel of the famed Lord Grouse in his stead.” The thief was most eloquent in his address, quite overwhelming Lord Grouse who had not in his memory received an ambassador from any other lord, duke, or king of any land. The flattery worked well.

“My Lord Duke,” said Grouse, “I am pleased to welcome your visit and ask that you bring what matter you will to my judgment and I will advise you with the experience of my years.”

Then Grouse stood from the throne, which nearly toppled with him as his foot caught in the blanket as it slipped between the crates and his dignity was barely rescued by the guards who caught him and set him on his feet. He joined the thief and asked him, “What counsel would you seek from me, good sir Duke? Let us walk in the garden and talk as friends.”

And so they left the banquet hall and walked in what Grouse called his garden. It was so overgrown with weeds and briars from lack of attention that the two soon gave up trying to fight their way through the brambles and sat together on a rickety bench out of earshot of the guards who were still picking stick-tights out of their armor.

“Soon, indeed I am afraid all too soon,” began the thief, “I shall ascend to the throne of my esteemed ancestor, King Glendal. He is old and ill and the time will come soon that he will pass to the overlands as a free soul. But my ascension to the throne is not uncontested, for there is a widespread belief that we have not the ability to establish alliances with kingdoms outside our borders and that in this changing world we will be asked to come to blows with nations who suspect our strength is less than what can be safely overcome. Therefore I have journeyed to you to find some means of establishing an alliance that will dissuade them from aggression.”

“And you seek that alliance from me?” asked Grouse, incredulously. “I am not powerful. I do not have an army that can assist you. How can I be of use.”

“Ah,” said the thief, “what you have and are so modest about is fabled wealth. For we do not seek an alliance of strength, but of treasure. In this we believe we can make a grand alliance.”

Now the miserly Grouse was cautious at the mention of his wealth, but the flattery of the thief was such that he let his caution slip.

“How would my wealth be of help to you?” he asked.

“Well,” said Bárcenas, “our vaults in Skulhellitan are the strongest in the world. Our army is strong and able to withstand assault because they are wraiths and spirits that are not easily slain in battle. What we need is to show our enemies how that army is trusted by our allies and they will be discouraged from attacking us. Therefore, I would propose that we store your wealth in our vaults so that our enemies can see that you have created a strong alliance with us and cannot possibly breach our defenses.”

“But my vault is secure,” said the miser. “It has a bar an chains on the door and I have the only key.”

“Our vault,” said the thief, “has a door carved out of solid rock that takes four strong men to move when six golden locks have been released by the six gatekeepers of the underworld.” The miser was impressed.

“My vault is reached by a staircase of two hundred steps with a locked door at each end,” said the miser.

“My vault,” countered the thief, “is in a sheer mountain cliff one hundred feet above a raging ocean.” The miser was again impressed, but unwilling to give up.

“My vault can only be reached through a secret passage in my own bedchamber,” said the miser.

“My vault,” boldly lied the thief, “is guarded by a fiery dragon that must be passed in order to get to it.”

“How do you do that?” asked the miser, astounded.

“I thought you would might ask that,” said the thief, “and so I have brought with me the secret that will allow a man to pass the dragon for you to hold in safety until such time as we agree to transfer the wealth once again.”

“You have this with you?” exclaimed the miser in unbelief. “Show me. Show me!”

His excitement was so great that the guards took notice and began to approach. He frantically waved them away, but the thief feigned sudden caution.

“Let us not expose ourselves in this public forum,” he said.

“I have it,” said the miser. “After dinner this evening, you will come to my chamber. I will take you with me to my vault. You will show me there the key, and if it is true, we will transfer my wealth to your vault where it will surely be impregnable, and I will keep the key here in my vault as security.” It was agreed.

Now the thief went hastily to work and called upon confederates to execute his plan. That night, the thief and the miser dined on an impressive array of dishes that were served by somber looking peasants in ragged clothes. After they had eaten and drunk their fill, they retired to their bedchambers. When the bell in the great watchtower tolled the middle of the night, the thief knocked softly on the miser’s door and was admitted. The miser pulled a drapery aside behind his bed and opened the first door with a key from a great ring of keys at his belt. Then they descended two hundred steps into the darkness until the miser stopped to open a second door with another key. Then they entered a chamber lit by only a single torch. In front of them was the barred and chained door. This required the miser to use three different keys before the bars were released and the door creaked open.

As fortunes might be measured, the miser’s hoard was pitiful. He had gold coins and silver cups. A few precious stones decorated plates or circlets, but the thief’s heart sank at the thought that he had taken such a risk for so little.

But, there was only one way he could save his hands from the overlords, so he continued to play his game. He reached into his coat and withdrew the marvelous golden dragon goblet. The truth be known, it was much finer than the miser’s wealth. When the miser’s eyes lit upon it, they brightened for he had only once seen a treasure that matched it.

“This is the key to the dragon vault?” cried the miser. “It is beautiful.”

“Yes, well,” said Bárcenas, “if you will proceed with this trade, you will keep the dragon key in this vault while we take your vast hoard for safe-keeping. Thereby we will cement our alliance and show our enemies how powerful we truly are.” The miser readily agreed. Then, remembering his manners, he rushed to a corner of the vault.

“I must send a gift to King Glendal,” said the miser, overwhelmed by the beauty of the goblet. “I have only one treasure that can possibly merit this great honor that the king has paid me.” With that he revealed a sword and knife that made the thief’s heart stop with their beauty. Emblazoned on the blade of each was an engraving of a dragon that seemed to glow from the blue steel as the thief looked at it.

“This sword and dagger,” said the miser, “were all that were left to me by my father. All this treasure has been earned by my own hand, but this. This knife was forged by the fabled dwarves that live near the haunted lake high in the mountains of Evandor. Their workmanship is unlike any that has ever been known and it is said that they are so sharp that they might pierce a man and leave no mark. These will I send to your king as my gift and will exchange them with him again for the dragon goblet when I retrieve my treasures from your vault.”

This having been said, the two conspirators exchanged their gifts and set to bundling the miser’s treasure up into bags and hauling it out of the vault. All this time, the miser thought, “you will never see the goblet again, for with it in my power, I can go into your vault at will and take not only what is mine, but what is yours together.” At the same time, the thief thought, “you will never see the sword and dagger again, for the overlords will retrieve your treasure, but I will keep these weapons. So, deceiving each other they proceeded to a cliff that the thief knew to store the treasures.

When they approached the cliff and saw the raging water beneath it, the thief instructed the miser to fill the goblet with water and when he saw the fire of the dragon, he was to cast the water at it, this would allow them to pass. Soon as they wound their way up the cliff by a narrow path, fire burst from the rocks ahead of them.

“Now,” said the thief, and the frightened miser threw the water at the flames. They were extinguished immediately and the two continued up the cliff. They entered the cave and were met by six men the thief had picked as his confederates. These six unlocked six locks and four of them pushed the stone door aside.

In fact, this was the secret hoard of the thief and his confederates, and it appeared much richer than that of the poor miser. The miser’s eyes went wide as he thought of the wealth that he could now command. They stacked the miser’s miserable pile next to that of the thief, then ritually locked the door and descended the cliff. Bárcenas set Grouse on the road back to the Castle of Minor Ordam and then returned up the path to the cliff. As he ascended, the confederate who had thrown burning oil at the path on their original visit joined him and they met the final six at the cave entrance. They carefully removed the miser’s treasure and loaded it on a donkey, then they sealed the entrance of the cave so it could not be seen from the path. The thief then went into the city and to the overlords.

Immediately they seized the treasure, exclaiming over its pittance and accused the thief of stealing from the miser. But the thief protested that he had been given the entire treasure by the miser and could prove this. He instructed the overlords to ride to the Castle of Minor Ordam and ask the miser where his treasure was.

So the overlords rode to the castle and at the gates demanded that the miser address them. He stood atop a wall and called down to them.

“What will you have of me, a poor man barely able to pay his taxes to the lords and whose people are scarcely able to feed themselves?” asked the miser.

“Where is your treasure, Grouse,” called the king of the overlords, “for we believe it has been stolen.”

“It is not possible,” returned the miser. “This night past I have transferred what miserable wealth I once had into the safekeeping of King Glendal of the Underland by his faithful Duke of Skulhellitan. In token of our exchange, the Duke has entrusted me with this goblet and I have given him the sword and dagger of Ordam. There is no other treasure at this castle.”

With that the miser returned to his rooms to admire the incredible dragon goblet and the overlords returned to face the thief.

“You see,” said the thief, “I have taken nothing from the Lord Grouse that he has not freely given me. Here is his treasure, and here are the sword and dagger of Ordam that he has entrusted to me.” The overlords, being honorable men, had no choice but to leave the thief with the sword and dagger, and took the treasures of the miser. These they divided among themselves and with the people of Ordam, thinking nothing of being thieves themselves.

For many years, the miser was so enamored of the beautiful dragon goblet that he did not think again of the hoard. He was so pleased with this treasure, in fact, that he ceased to collect heavy taxes from his people and the fiefdom prospered. He had so completely forgotten about his previous treasure that on his deathbed he clutched the dragon goblet to his chest whispering, “Mine, all mine.”

As for the thief, he could not be other than he was. He continued to steal from people and ultimately was caught. The executioner used his own sword, emblazoned with a dragon, to cut off his hand, but the thief clutched the hand to his wrist and the wound was so clean that the parts knitted together and he was healed.

The knife I bear with the dragon emblazoned on its blade is the very knife of that thief, passed down through generations so that even I, the poorest of his kin, carry it with pride.

The crowded commons of the Inn of the Lost Soul was stunned by the story Steven told. Steven, for his part, felt dizzy from the exertion of telling the story and from the food and ale that he had consumed. He reached for his mug and drank off another round.

“Storyteller,” said one of those gathered, “this is a most amazing tale. But where, pray tell, is the sword that matches this glorious blade?”

“Ah that,” said Steven, nearly tripping over himself as he stumbled to his pack. “The sword is here in the pack of my glorious master, The Honorable Pablo Ibin Arriaga of far away Baghalonia.” With that, Steven drew the sword and lay it on the table next to the knife. The room was hushed in awe and Pablo asked help in getting his faithful servant to bed. Steven was led stumbling blindly up the stairs and was tucked into the bed.

The sword and knife were left beside him and he heard as the last of the guests was leaving the room, “I should like to have heard about his hat.”

When they were all gone, Pablo sat beside the groggy Steven and said, “Now, dragonslayer,” he said, “you owe me twelve gold coins worth of information. Where is the young idiot that delivered me into the hands of authorities in Baghalonia? I would repay his loyalty with a dose of my own.”

Steven was muzzy about what he was saying, but realized that the thief meant harm to Jasper. It was against Steven’s nature to lie, but in his ale-induced haze, he could not do more than mutter, “A wagon-ride to Zannopolis,” said Steven, “and four hundred ninety-six thousand two hundred forty-eight steps, across a lake and next to a river.” Then Steven passed out.

Chapter 18
Chapter 20

Chapter Eighteen

2007-11-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

HAGRINED THAT HE WAS HELPING a thief to steal from a wealthy person, Steven none-the-less helped Pablo Ibin Arriaga to his feet and supported him as they left through the servant’s door and made their way to the street. There was already movement about and in spite of his lack of sleep, Steven was alert for any danger that might come. Pablo told him of guards that would brand or worse cut the hands off people caught thieving.

Steven had never felt himself in danger before and hurried as fast as Pablo could support himself on the staff through the streets. It was surprising how quickly the thief could move even while complaining of his crippled leg. Soon they came to a market square where Steven could smell fresh bread and pies. Pablo directed him to go to one and buy them breakfast, which Steven did, fishing coins from his little purse.

“Now,” said Pablo, as they finished eating their shepherd’s pies, “we need to see about some armor for you.”

“The armorer was across the road from the inn with the sign of a rooster,” Steven volunteered, now anxious to be about his own way. “That is where the knights were getting their armor to ride off to the king’s war.”

“Which makes it a good place for us to avoid,” said Pablo. “Going where so many officers of the king are in one place is asking for trouble. Besides, if the armorer is handing out swords at government prices, he will be charging twice what you will want to pay. Now I know of a place where common weapons are sold for common people. Let us go there.” And so, Pablo Ibin Arriaga led Steven deeper into the city where the streets twisted between buildings so close together that Steven could see only patches of sky overhead.

At last they came into a square that ran with muck in trenches down the middle and smelled of garbage and refuse. Across the square, Pablo pointed out an armorer.

“Now Steven,” said the thief, “here is how we approach this smith. I will go in through the front door and occupy the master by offering him this fine silver goblet for sale. He will offer me a third of its real value. I will haggle with him until he finally reaches half the real value which I will accept. You will go around the side of the shop and slip into the back workroom. No one will be there because this man is a hard master and cannot keep an apprentice. So he makes everything himself and is a harder man for having no assistants. While I argue with the smith over the price he will give me for the silver, you will select a fine sword from the stock you will see there. Make sure it is a good sword with a pommel that wraps the wrist like so.” Pablo demonstrated the type of pommel that Steven was to choose. “The blade is to be as thick as your thumb and no larger. A sword quickly becomes too heavy to wield if it is thicker. You should depend on speed and agility instead of brute force like the knights do. No dragon is going to quake in fear at seeing you, no matter how big your sword is. Do not take anything but the sword. It will balance out the fact that I will sacrifice this beautiful silver chalice for a fraction of its value.” Steven was hesitant, but the thief said, “Look at me Steven George Dragonslayer.” Steven looked into the thief’s fathomless eyes. “It will be okay.” Steven believed him.

And so, having been instructed by the thief, Steven circled around to the back of the shop that was on a deserted alley. He saw the smith working at a bench and heard the chimes ring as Pablo Ibin Arriaga entered the front of the shop. As soon as the master moved to help Pablo, Steven quietly entered through the back courtyard.

As Pablo had assured him, there were a wide variety of swords on display. Steven looked down the line for the one that would match the description that Pablo had given him. And then he saw it. A beautiful sword. He drew it from the rack and it seemed to sing. Then Steven saw the engraving on the blade. This was no sword forged by an evil master smith in Byziatica. This sword was meant for Steven. The engraving was of a dragon. It glowed with a blue-white light in the semi-darkness of the room.

Steven quickly wrapped the sword in a cloth that he found nearby and started for the garden gate. But something did not seem right to Steven. Remembering what the merchant had told him, Steven left five gold coins where he had found the sword and made his speedy exit. He walked along the dark alley for many steps as the thief had instructed him, turning neither left nor right until at last Pablo Ibin Arriaga caught up with him. The thief was whistling brightly as he stepped smartly up beside Steven, then leaned heavily on the staff that Steven had loaned him.

“It was good bargaining,” said Pablo. “The armorer got what he wanted, I got what I wanted, and you got what you wanted. What could be better?” Steven declined to tell the thief that he had left gold coins for the smith.

The thief helped Steven conceal his new sword in the pack so that he did not draw attention to it. Then they continued to walk through the city.

“Tomorrow,” said Pablo, “we must find you a horse. Now horses are another thing altogether. We can’t simply distract a livery lad and ride off on one. Horses are known to their owners and are easily spotted by the guards. You must buy a good horse. But for the price of ten gold coins for a horse and saddle, you won’t find more than a nag to cart you out of the city and die. Nor should you have a charger like the knights ride. They are large and made to carry great weights that include their armor, their knights, and the armor of the knights. You need a smaller, faster horse. I can show you to a market where we can find such a horse. Since there is great demand for chargers as the kingdom goes to war, you might even get a good price.”

They found an inn, and the thief convinced Steven that he should pay for their night’s lodging and dinner so they appeared to be a respectable country gentleman and his page visiting relatives in the city. With this agreed, the two arrived at an inn with the image of a hanged man over the door and took a room there. Steven continued to ask the thief about his profession and who in the city of Byziatica he was helping with the coins he had received from the sale of the silver chalice. But Pablo was canny about his answers and Steven had no more information than he started with at the end of the night.

For the thief’s part, however, he probed into Steven’s travels, who he had met, and where he had been. He told of the village idiot who couldn’t make his way home for fear of getting lost, and of the brother who was setting out to find him.

This seemed to interest the thief more than a little and he begged of Steven to tell him where this village idiot could be found. But Steven had learned from his dealings with the merchant that some information was worth more to some than to others.

“The merchant was willing to pay ten gold coins for that information,” Steven said proudly. “I can see that you think this information is even more valuable than the merchant thought. As he taught me that things were worth more to some people than to others, I should sell this information to you for twelve gold coins.”

This vexed the thief. “Now where am I to get twelve gold coins,” he asked. “This is not a charitable act for a brother who has helped you acquire a sword from his own acquired wealth, whom you shot from the sky with a wayward arrow and crippled, and who has freely given you a story.”

Now Steven was troubled, for indeed he did feel he owed the thief for the story, but since he had paid for the sword and had faithfully shot his arrow believing he had seen a dragon he dismissed the thief’s attempt to collect on those debts.

“I’ve helped you with your lodging for the night, food, and the profit of a silver chalice,” Steven said. “I recognize only that I have a story debt to you. If you want more information you will have to pay the price like anyone else would.”

The thief steamed over this and after dinner told Steven that he would discuss it further in the morning. Then they retired to their beds.

In the morning, Steven rose and ate his morning meal in the common room. The thief was nowhere to be seen. In their room, the bedclothes were rumpled, but the thief was not there. Steven waited for a while, supposing Pablo to have gone off to arrange for the horse, but when the innkeeper began to ask if he would be taking a room for another night, Steven shouldered his pack and left. He was not twenty steps away from the inn, not knowing what direction to turn, when a horse trotted up beside him and Steven looked up into the face of Pablo Ibin Arriaga.

The horse was small with a slightly pointed head and ears that flicked forward. He picked his feet up with a dainty yet commanding stride that pled to be let run. The thief sat upon a splendid black and silver saddle and looked haughtily about.

“Pablo,” Steven began, “you returned!”

“I’ve have been about doing the business of the dragonslayer,” said the thief. “I have purchased this fine horse on his behalf and there is no better deal to be had in all of Byziatica. I could sell him to you if you are interested.”

Steven looked at the fine beast and thought that there was no finer way that he could ride to meet the dragon than on this horse. His confidence soared as he imagined charging the mighty dragon on his fine horse, wielding the tinker’s sword and dagger.

“I will gladly purchase this fine animal,” he said, reaching into his purse to find the ten gold coins.

“I am sorry,” said the thief, “but the horse-trader I got this animal from could see how valuable he would be to you and refused to part with him for less than twenty gold coins, plus five for this fine saddle.”

Steven looked in his purse. He had only fifteen gold coins and seven silver.

“I do not have so much,” he said to the thief.

“Well, now,” said the thief dismounting to lead his horse alongside Steven. “What have you that is worthwhile to trade? I know! A certain bit of information about the whereabouts of a village idiot. That would be worth, say twelve gold coins. So, if you tell me what I want to know, I will credit you with twelve coins and you can pay me the other thirteen. You will still have good journeying money in the form of five gold coins.”

Steven had the vague feeling that he had been taken advantage of, but the spirited horse was so perfect and the terms in keeping with what he said, so he agreed to tell the thief where Jasper could be found. Pablo directed them to another inn which he said was only a few steps from the road south that Steven would ride out on in the morning. Over dinner, said the thief, Steven could pay his story-debt and then tell him where Jasper had hidden himself.

And thus they came to the Inn of the Lost Soul near the furthest gate of Byziatica.

Chapter 17
Chapter 19

Chapter Seventeen

2007-11-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

NDER THE SPELL of Pablo Ibin Arriaga, Steven was soon running all manner of errands throughout the great house. After the fire was built and drink was served, there was food to prepare and a tub of water to bring for Pablo to soak his ankle in. Steven gathered a pillow from the master bedroom for Pablo’s back and a silver chalice from the cabinet in the dining room for Pablo to drink from. Steven marveled at the size of the house. It seemed most of his village could have lived in its many rooms.

“Now,” said Pablo, as he was settled comfortably in his chair, “how does a dragonslayer come to be in the great city of Byziatica? It seems far from where a dragon is likely to be found, and even given your skill with a bow you seem poorly equipped to do battle with a dragon.”

“Oh, I’m to see an armorer this morning and buy a sword and shield,” said Steven excitedly. “Perhaps I will even buy a horse so I can ride to battle. I’ve been with the knights of the king and I know how to care for chargers.”

“My!” said Pablo. “You must have a wealthy patron to supply you with such lavish armor.”

“I have earned gold coins to pay armor,” said Steven. “I have learned much about commerce on my journey.”

“Gold coins, eh?” Pablo looked interested.

“Yes,” said Steven. “Only I don’t know where the armorer is now. I sort of lost track of where I was while I was chasing you. How do people tell directions in a city? There are so many twists and turns. The sun is even invisible much of the time.”

“Well, now,” said Pablo, “I can help you with that. I can teach you exactly how to find your way in the city. I can even help you get the armor that you need. There is plenty to be had in Byziatica, and I can get it for you wholesale.”

“What does that mean?” asked Steven.

“Cheap,” said Pablo. “You may not have to pay a thing.”

“How can that be?” asked Steven. “Do you mean I should trade something instead of using my gold coins?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Pablo. “It would be best if I told you a little story.” And so, without further prompting, the roofrunner began his tale.

The Generous Thief

NCE UPON A TIME, in the childhood of those who remember, in the exotic city of Baghalonia, there was born a small child to a very poor family. Thought hard workers, the mother and father scarcely were able to put bread on the table for their little family. In the course of time, there came a great plague to that city and the mother and father and brothers and sisters of the small boy all died leaving the lad to fend for himself in the big cruel world.

For let me explain to you that the world is a cold and cruel place for a child with no family. Often the boy would find himself hiding near the livestock pens to snatch a husk of corn or a scrap of grain from the animals. But if he was caught, he would be beaten within a breath of his life. Cold, hungry, and desperate, the child joined with other children orphaned on the streets to forage in the dumps and protect each other from the guards who protected even what the rest of society deemed worthless from those who might benefit from it.

In this society of beggars, the lad grew. But he was not blind to the wealth around him, nor to the needs of his little band of children who had no hope but to beg on the streets for the rest of their short, miserable lives. It seemed a shame to the boy that while he and his friends fought starvation daily, there were those in the city who had abundance and still could not see that there were children in need around them.

One day as he contemplated a small scrap of bread he had been given where he begged, a smaller child came near him and looked fournfully at the piece of bread. The child’s belly was distended with malnourishment. It looked as though it would faint with hunger before our hero. Without even thinking of his own empty belly, the lad gave this little child his scrap of bread and watched as he ate. As he watched, the boy came upon a great realization. It was a world of plenty, but a few people controlled the wealth of food and withheld it from those in need. There needed to be a great redistribution of wealth in the City of Baghalonia. Thus he set out on his mission to care and provide for those less fortunate than himself.

It began in the market. He learned that while a person was distracted with buying one thing, another could be take from him without notice. And so he proceeded through the market watching for wealthy people or their servants buying food. As they made one purchase and put it in their bulging bags, he would remove another from the bag and slip away. He enlisted other children as his confederates so that the food was passed from child to child out of the market. Thus no child was caught taking the food in the first place. He became so successful at redistributing the food that his little band grew into a great underground society. Daily it became more and more difficult to provide for such a large group by simply redistributing market-day gleanings. It was clear that he would have to expand his endeavlors.

Now, like in most big cities, there were certain districts that seemed to have more than their share of everything. The young economist began frequenting these areas, watching to see how life worked there. He found out when people were in their homes and what doors the servants used. He found what goods went into the homes and planned carefully how certain goods could be gotten out of the homes. And then he began to redistribute the wealth of the city. He began by slipping into a wealthy home when no one was there and removing food from their larders, and then taking it to his “family” of the poor in the city.

This was when the young thief, for we cannot call him else than that, discovered the next great mystery of wealth: coins.

It happened that one day he was appropriating a ham from a wealthy patron that he tipped over a bowl in the pantry and discovered to his surprise that it was filled with coins that the servants used to buy food in the market. Now it was always the practice of the thief to remove only a portion of the goods in a pantry. A patron who was missing a ham might shrug and think they had already served it, but a patron who came home to find his pantry bare would surely raise the alarm. So he determined to do the same with the coins. He removed one of every ten coins in the bowl and took them with him. He distributed the coins among his band and sent them to the market. They returned with more food than he had ever been able to steal in a day. This was a great turning point in the thief’s career, for now he had found a way to feed more people with less effort, for coins were also easy to conceal.

The difficulty with searching for money in the wealthy houses was that people often hid the coins in different places. While searching a house for coins, the thief discovered there were other small things that might go missing unnoticed, but that could be traded for other goods, clothing, and food. Soon his underground community was thriving and he had taught the art of wealth redistribution to many. His family was able to care for its own and many became legitimate traders who with the start they were given by the generous thief, were able to start their businesses. These always remembered their roots and returned their tithe to the community of poor which thrived through their generosity, and kept them from unofficial visits by independent entrepreneurs. The generous thief kept his family safe and protected those traders and merchants who shared their wealth.

In the course of events, however, there were some wealthy patrons who did not like the concept of wealth redistribution, and the generous thief found that it was prudent to move to a new city and teach the poor of that city to participate in the bounty of their patrons. The thief found that the more frequently he moved from city to city, the less likely he was to be caught and beaten or have his hands cut off, so he wanders from city to city to this day, teaching new economic theories and helping those who will hear to provide for themselves.

That generous thief’s name is Pablo Ibin Arriaga, and I am he.

“Generous indeed!” exclaimed Steven. “You have once upon a timed me without asking for a story in return. I am in your debt!”

The thief was surprised, but not unpleasantly so. To have the dragonslayer believe he was in his debt would be to his advantage.

“But,” Steven continued, “I do not understand how this could be. You live in a house as big as my village, yet you are alone here. Surely such a thief, fabled for his generosity would have those he cared for living near him.”

“Ah!” laughed the thief. “Did I say I lived here? No, my friend. I have merely shared in the bounty of this great man’s home for the evening, and I have seen you in need and brought out to share. Speaking of which, we should probably be about our day’s business and away from here before the servants arrive to prepare the house for the return of its master. Now, tell me, did you see any little bags of coins lying around while you were getting pillow and drink?” Pablo stuffed the silver goblet into his bag and stood to leave. He suddenly seemed to remember his bad ankle and called out for Steven to support him as they left the rich man’s house and returned to the streets in the early morning light.

Chapter 16
Chapter 18

Chapter Sixteen

2007-11-16T03:30:00.000-08:00

ESTERDAY HAD PASSED SLOWLY and on this fourth day in the merchant’s company, Steven was beginning to get impatient. Other wagons had joined the merchant as they passed through towns and villages that now appeared on the road so frequently Steven couldn’t tell when he had left one and entered another. And to the sides of the main road many smaller roads led off into the distance. Twice they and intersected roads as broad as the one on which they traveled and had been stalled waiting while wagons negotiated a turning from one into the other.

Steven suggested that he should get out and walk, but the merchant admonished him that he should at least get through the city gates in his company.

“Is this not the city, then?” Steven said looking around at more people than he had ever seen in his life.

“We are still a day’s journey from the city,” said the merchant. “Granted you could probably walk there and get there yet today if you could keep from being run over by a cart, but when you reached the city gates you would have to explain your business to the guards and they might choose to deny you entry. In my company, I can assure you entrance to the city and passage through it.”

Steven acquiesced to the merchant’s suggestions and in the evening they stopped at yet another inn for the night.

“Now, Steven,” said the merchant as they finished their dinner, “how much money have you?”

“Money?” Steven asked.

“Yes. Coins. Silver. Gold.” The merchant could see he was not getting through. He pulled a coin purse and poured a few coins out on the table.

“Oh!” Steven exclaimed. “I have two silver coins that I was given when I rethatched a roof, and five silver coins the knights gave me for my service to them on the road.” Steven poured the seven coins out on the table across from the merchant.

“I must talk to my brother about the wages he pays,” said the merchant. “You should have had twice that for your service to him. Now, do you know what these are worth?”

“Yes,” Steven said proudly. “These two are worth half a day of my labor, and these five are worth three days on the road. I found that two silver coins could be traded for a bowl of watery soup and a closet to sleep in.”

“Hmmm. Yes,” said the merchant. “And by that logic, how many days could you last in the city?”

“As long as I wish,” Steven answered. “I can hunt and spread my bedroll beneath any tree.”

“Well, the problem is that there are few trees in the city and no game. You must stay in an inn, or in several as you work your way across the city. Now in Byziatica, an inn will cost three silver coins for dinner and a room. Another for breakfast and yet another if you drink ale. So if it costs five silver coins for a single night, how long can you stay in the city?”

Steven looked at his meager pile of coins. “Only one night,” he said at last.

“Yes,” said the merchant. “That is not enough for you to get through Byziatica. Therefore, I will propose another way for you to get coins that is much better than thatching a roof or squiring for a knight.” Steven was intrigued. In his village everyone shared common fields and flocks and traded with each other for anything else they needed. He had never seen a coin until he was with the tinker.

“How shall I get more coins?” Steven asked anxiously.

“Well, you sell things,” the merchant suggested. “The idea is that you buy things for one silver coin and sell them to someone else for two silver coins.”

“But if the thing is worth one silver coin, why would someone buy it for two silver coins?” Steven asked incredulously.

“Well, you see, things are not worth the same to everyone,” said the merchant.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Steven said.

“Sure you can,” the merchant answered. “For example, you may, in your travels, have acquired information for which you paid nothing. It is simply an experience that you have had. But to someone else, that information might be worth quite a great deal.”

“What information would I have that someone would want to give me coins for?” Steven asked puzzled.

“Well,” said the merchant, “let’s say that before you met with the knights you had wandered high in the mountains and had come across a big lake. And somehow while you were up there wandering around, you encountered a very short man with an axe and his very tall thin wife. Now someone might want to know how this old couple was getting along and whether they were in need of anything.”

“Oh, I could tell them that,” Steven said proudly. “They are a fine pair…” he was cut off by the merchant.

“Now here is your lesson in commerce,” said the merchant. “How much will that information cost me?” Steven worked his mouth up and down trying to relate the concept of information and coins together. He had no idea how many coins he should ask for. Then he noticed that the merchant had stacked ten coins together and moved them slightly toward Steven.

“I should say ten coins?” Steven said, holding his breath.

“Now I am interested in your information,” said the merchant. “Here are ten coins. Please tell me how my dear parents are and if they need anything from their sons.” And so, Steven exchanged all he had seen and heard in the woodcutter’s house to the merchant and the merchant gave him the ten silver coins.

“Now I must explain to you the idea of equivalents,” the merchant said after he had paid Steven. “Here is one gold coin. It is only slightly larger than the silver coins, but it is worth much more. One gold coin is the same as ten silver coins.” He placed the gold coin on the table and traded Steven for the ten silver coins. “In the same way, some information is worth much more than other information. For example, if you had information regarding a wayward brother who wandered away from home to seek his fortune and was unable to find his way back, that would be worth ten times as much as information about the parents. For one old brother would like to go and collect him and bring him back to his family where he belongs.”

Now Steven understood what he had felt long before. His journey had connected three brothers and their parents. He gladly accepted the ten gold coins the merchant offered him and told all about Jasper.

“He is in the town of Lastford. It is four hundred ninety-six thousand two hundred forty-eight steps and a wagon ride that way,” Steven said pointing back the way they had come, “across a lake and next to a great river.” In Steven’s mind, he knew exactly where the location was. He was not lost. The merchant looked sadly at Steven, but was very clever.

“And shall I keep to the left or to the right?” he asked.

“I went always to the right when I walked from home to here, until the knights took me to the left. But then we came back to the right.”

“So I should keep to the left,” the merchant said. “This is good information. I wonder that my brother did not come back with you.” So Steven told the merchant how he had started back with Jasper, but that they had encountered a storm and Steven had escorted Jasper back to the town of Lastford. The merchant had a tear in his eye.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” the merchant said. “Because you are a good man, and remind me of my brother in some ways, I will now pay you to take some information from me.” The merchant pushed ten more gold coins across the table. “I do not know if such a thing as a dragon exists, but if it does, you are poorly equipped to fight it. You need a shield and a sword. You would travel more swiftly if you had a horse. When we enter the city of Byziatica, I will escort you to an armorer. He will equip you with the right weapons. With them you will be able to complete your mission. He will charge you for the armor. You should not pay more than five gold coins for a sword and two for a shield. If you decided to buy a horse, do not pay more than ten gold coins, and make sure he gives you a saddle as well. Then hie you out of Byziatica as fast as you can go, for this city is no place for such as you. Now take that advice and go after your dragon.”

Steven humbly thanked the merchant for his advice and accepted the payment.

HE NEXT DAY about mid-day, they came with the throng to the city gates. The merchant paid the guard his tax for the goods brought into the city and they proceeded as the merchant had promised to the armorer. The merchant pointed out an inn across the road that Steven could spend the night in. As the merchant climbed back into his wagon he called out to Steven once more.

“Steven George, Dragonslayer,” said the merchant, “Do you know any stories where the hero goes back home?” Without waiting for an answer the merchant released his brake and the horses trotted off down the street.

Steven stared after him for a long time until a band of knights came riding up the road and pulled up in front of the armorer’s forge. There was a great deal of commotion and commanding and then the knights marched off, leaving their horses in the armorer’s care. Steven cautiously approached the harried man.

“Good sir,” Steven said, “I would like to buy armor suitable for fighting a dragon.” The armorer looked up at him, but did not deign to answer. He began to lead the horses away. “Sir!” Steven called after him.

“Come back tomorrow!” the armorer called back. “Can’t you see I have more work than I can handle this evening?” With that, he continued to his stables.

There was nothing for Steven to do but go back across the road and seek lodging at the inn. Here he got only slightly better shrift. The innkeeper was brusque and pointed to a spot in one corner of the common.

“Sit there,” he said. “I have many guests. After dinner, if there are any rooms left you may have one. Otherwise you will roll out your bedroll by the fire.” Steven rather thought this was a better idea than a room, but after dinner, the innkeeper led him to a cold attic and told him to be down in the kitchen by daybreak if he wanted any food before he left. Steven lay out his bedroll and attempted to sleep with all he had learned. The room and meal had cost him four silver coins as the merchant had said, but it seemed the innkeeper had wanted more. It was strange that as often as he had slept under the stars, even with snow on the ground in the morning, it had always seemed warmer than this attic. He lay in his bedroll shivering and unable to sleep.

It was because of this restlessness that Steven was awake to hear the scrabbling steps on the roof above his head. He pushed a bit of the roof shingle out of his way and stuck his head through to look out. What he saw made his heart nearly stop. On the next building the dragon perched, then raised up and skimmed across the rooftop leaping across the narrow gap between one building and the next. The dragon was in the city and getting away.

Steven hastily tied his pack to his back, grabbed his bow and staff and rushed down the stairs and out of the door of the inn. He ran up the street looking up at the rooftops in the direction he thought the dragon had gone. The moon moved from east to west across the city as Steven pursued the dragon, or Steven was confused on the directions he was going, but soon ahead of him he saw the dragon take a mighty leap from rooftop to rooftop. Steven loosed the arrow that he had ready in his bow and watched as it pinned the dragon to a chimneypot. He rushed to go and finish the job.

When he reached the house, he could see the dragon’s wings fluttering, pinioned to the chimneypot by his arrow. On the ground before him, a man moaned and pushed himself to one knee.

“Blast if you haven't hobbled me!” the man swore. “Are you a guardsman of the city that you would shoot an honest roofrunner out of the sky?”

“I am Steven George the dragonslayer,” said Steven, “and I thought you were a dragon flying over the rooftops.”

“Well, it is like flying, see,” said the man. “But I was really just running along minding my own business. It was my cape that you pinned to the chimney up there.”

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” Steven said. He helped the man up. “If you are injured I will gladly help you home.”

“Yes, that would work,” said the roofrunner. “If we are caught by the guards we can claim to have lost our way after a night of drinking. Here, give me a hand and help me up the street. It is not far from here.”

Steven helped the man up and let him lean on his shoulder as they hobbled through the streets. In a short time they came to a rich-looking house. Instead of marching up to the door, however, the roofrunner led Steven through a walled garden to the back of the house where there was a servant’s entrance.

“My key,” said the man. “It was in the pocket of my cape. Now what will I do?” he asked plaintively. Steven looked around for a solution.

“Doesn’t anyone else live with you who could open the door?” he asked.

“No,” said the roofrunner. “I live alone and my servants come by day. I’m a solitary man.” Steven continued to puzzle over a solution. Losing patience, the man continued. “See here. There is a window just over here. I can’t jump up to it because of my leg. Let me give you a leg up and you can crawl through, then come round and open the door for me from the inside.”

This sounded like a reasonable option to Steven, so he dropped his pack, bow, and staff on the ground and the man gave him a leg up to wriggle through the narrow window. Steven dropped through on the other side and after a few minutes stumbling around inside, found his way to the kitchen door and flung it open.

“Here we are,” Steven said brightly. There was no answer. Steven looked around, but there was no roofrunner either. He wedged the door open slightly and went out through the garden the way they had come in. The roofrunner was hobbling away, using Steven’s staff to hold him and shouldering his pack. Steven ran after him.

“Hey there!” he said. “I have the door open. Where are you going?”

“O what?” said the man. “O you are the dragonslayer. See here, I’ve kept your pack and staff for you.”

“But you were supposed to wait by the door for me to let you in,” Steven protested.

“So I was,” said the roofrunner. “I must have knocked my wits a bit in the fall. Well, lead on dragonslayer. Take me home.”

Steven relieved the man of his pack and staff and leant him an arm instead. The man gripped it hard as they went back to the garden door and entered.

“Well done, well done,” said the roofrunner. “You got in after all.” He sat heavily on a bench next to the kitchen table. “Find a light if you would, Steven. It seems the fire has gone out. Then check the pantry there and see if there isn’t a bottle of spirits or some brew to drink. I must ease the pain in my leg.” Steven set about getting a fire lit in the kitchen fireplace and looked where he was directed for a bottle of something that looked drinkable.

He set the bottle on the table and the man took a deep draft and sighed as he settled back on the bench. “Sit down, dragonslayer. Sit down. We don’t stand on formalities in this house,” said the roofrunner.

Steven sat on a bench facing the man, and for the first time, Steven’s eyes locked with the roofrunner’s. They were black as coal and so deep that Steven was mesmerized. He suddenly felt as though he could not look away.

“I am Pablo Ibin Arriaga,” said the man, “--now your master. Welcome to my little lair, Steven George Dragonslayer.”

Chapter 15
Chapter 17

Chapter Fifteen

2007-11-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

HILE RIDING IN THE MERCHANT’S WAGON, Steven thought of how he would tell a story in the evening, and what story he should tell. But his thoughts were constantly interrupted, it seemed, by another town coming into view or by the merchant’s desire for talkative company.

“We had another brother once,” said the merchant. “In fact it was not until we lost him that my brother and I realized how important we all were to each other. He was a bit simple, mind you, but a good lad and I fear he took the brunt of both my brother’s and my tricks.”

“What happened to him,” Steven asked, suddenly interested.

“I wish I knew,” said the merchant. “Went off to seek his fortune. Probably drowned in the flooding of the castle in the hills. He wouldn’t have known how to get home even from there. Now there’s a character to tell a story about. A lad who walks into disaster after disaster until one kills him.”

“It doesn’t always happen that way,” Steven said, an idea coming to him unbidden. “Sometimes the simple ones are the greatest masters.”

“Now that is the story I want to hear,” said the merchant, “especially if it has to do with how you came by your most impressive hat.”

And so, when they had entered the next village and made arrangements for the night, had eaten well and lazed beside the fire, the merchant announced to those wayfarers who were in the common room that his friend was about to pay a story-debt and they were all invited to listen. Steven stood beside the fire in his tall, feathered hat and stretched out his arm with the staff. The room went suddenly quite still.

The Simple Hero

NCE UPON A TIME, not so long ago, and certainly not so far you couldn’t walk there from here, there lived a poor fisherman with his two sons. Now one son was a hard worker and obeyed his father in everything he was told to do. He carted fish to market and returned with coins; he mended nets; he rowed the boat while his father fished. He even cooked meals for the three men and saw to it that his brother had clothes and food.

The brother, on the other hand was stupid. In fact, he was so stupid that he could not follow the simplest instructions. His father sent him on an errand to the village and he got lost. It took his brother half the day to find him sitting near the road weeping because he didn’t know which way was home.

Finally the fisherman said to his simple son, “I can no longer support you here. You cannot do the simplest work. Here are ten silver coins. Go seek your fortune in the world.

The son gladly took his father’s money and set off into the world. When he was gone the elder brother was sad, but he was a good son and helped his father until the day the old man died.

The younger son, named Simon, set his foot to the path and wandered away from home to seek his fortune.

Simon discovered that he no longer worried about the way to get home because he knew he was never going home. So he wandered freely and joyfully and his footsteps took him far away into another land. In this land strange beasts roamed the land and as was bound to happen one strayed across the path on which Simon was gleefully whistling as he walked.

This beast had the body of a lion, the head of a man and the wings of an eagle. Simon looked at the beast and said, “What kind of strange creature are you?”

“I am a sphinx,” said the beast, “and you shall die on this spot ere you pass by me.”

“That is rude,” said Simon. “I shall pass where I please.” With this Simon made to pass the sphinx, but it reared up on its hind legs and swatted Simon so strong across the face that Simon fell to the ground. Simon stood and faced the sphinx again. “Both rude and mean,” said Simon.

“I shall ask you a riddle,” said the sphinx. “If you can answer it I will let you pass. If you fail, however, I shall kill you and eat you on the spot.

“Very well,” said Simon. “Ask.”

“The head of kings, the tail of beasts, and when you eat, the cost of feasts. What am I?”

“Well that is silly,” said Simon. “You just said what you are. You are a beast with the head of a man, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. You are a sphinx. If you have some other name, you haven't been polite enough to introduce yourself.”

“The answer is not me,” the sphinx said gleefully, rising to pounce on Simon.

“It certainly is,” said Simon. “You asked "what am I?" I correctly identified you. I win. If I had asked "what am I?" you would have answered Simon and I would let you pass, but I am not so stupid as to ask you what I am.”

“The question,” explained the sphinx, “was what has the head of kings, the tail of beasts and is the cost of feasts. You cannot say that it is me.”

“Do you not have the tail of a beast?” asked Simon.

“I do,” said the sphinx.

“And is your head not the head of a king, since you rule this road?”

“It is,” said the sphinx.

“And if I answer you correctly, will it not cost you your feast?”

“It will,” said the sphinx.

“You see, if you want to stump a clever lad like me you should not be so obvious as to ask what you are,” Simon concluded.

The sphinx paced backward and forward. It advanced on Simon and then it retreated. It muttered to itself about not being the riddle, but was bound not to kill if the answer was correct. But it could not let him pass if it wasn’t the real answer. Simon, growing tired of this impasse finally snatched up a rock and smashed the beast in the head killing it. Simon plucked a feather from the eagle-wings of the sphinx and stuck it in his hat. Then feeling proud of himself and seeing no reason to waste them, he plucked more feathers from the wings to decorate his hat. Then he put the dead beast on his shoulders and continued on his way.

He had not gone far when he saw a serpent coiled in the road. The serpent hissed at Simon and declared, “You shall not pass this way while I live for I shall bite you with poisonous fangs and you will die.”

“This is a most unfriendly country,” declared Simon. “Why will you not let me pass and be on my way, who wish you no harm?”

“It is my nature to hunt and kill,” hissed the snake, “and I will not let you pass.”

“You said that before,” Simon said. As the snake reared back to strike, Simon hurled the body of the sphinx at it. The snake was bowled backward by the force of the impact and Simon fell upon it and cut its head off with a talon of the sphinx.

Simon was hungry and built a fire. He skinned and ate the snake meat and wrapped its skin around his feathered hat. Then he pillowed his head on the sphinx and slept the night.

In the middle of the night Simon awoke to a low moaning sound and the rattle of bones.

“Who are you that comes moaning about in the middle of the night?” Simon asked the skeleton.

“I am the bones of the outlaw Kroes,” chattered the skull. “I was hung from yon tree, but I still rise to steal and kill those who tarry here. You are doomed.”

“Everyone in this kingdom wants to kill poor strangers,” muttered Simon. “Come Sir Kroes, and sit by this warm fire. It must be cold hanging from that tree all night. Warm your bones and tell me your story.”

The specter was so surprised by this invitation that he approached the fire and sat opposite Simon. He had never seen a man who did not run from him. He had, in fact, never been treated kindly in life or death, but Simon was too stupid to be afraid of the robber any more than he had been of the sphinx or the serpent.

The skeleton began to relate his story and was frequently prompted with questions from Simon for he had never had such adventures and enjoyed hearing about them. The rooster was crowing afar when the skeleton jumped up from the fire and made to leave.

“Where do you go, Sir Kroes?” asked Simon.

“I must away to my grave before the sun arises,” said the skeleton.

“Then shake hands with your new friend,” said Simon. “I have never heard such tales in my life and I would listen further.” The skeleton stretched out his bony hand and Simon took it in his. He held the skeleton’s hand while entreating him to return again after sundown. The skeleton agreed and attempted to pull away from Simon, but Simon kept his grip on the skeletal hand extracting promises to meet again. Before the skeleton could extract himself from Simon’s grip, the first rays of the morning sun stretched out over the land and touched the skeleton. Instantly the bones turned to dust, all except the one finger bone that Simon still gripped in his hand.

“This land is most strange,” thought Simon. Then he lodged the finger bone in his hat, picked up the carcass of the sphinx, and continued his journey.

When he had gone a ways further he came to a castle. The gates of the castle were closed, but it appeared to Simon that the road ran directly through it.

“Would you, too, block my way?” Simon called at the castle walls. “I have killed a sphinx, I have killed a snake, and I have turned a skeleton’s bones to dust. Open your gates and let me pass or I shall do the same to you!”

There was silence for a few moments and Simon thought he would have to shout again, but then the gates slowly creaked open the breadth of a man and the king himself stepped through.

“Is it true?” asked the king. “My kingdom has been terrorized by a sphinx on the road for lo these many years.”

“Here is that sphinx, then,” said Simon casting the carcass before the king.

“A great serpent has slain many people on the road to my castle,” said the king. “Is it true that you have slain it?”

“This skin that ties my hat but yesterday belonged to a serpent in the path,” said Simon. “He blocked my way, but I must seek my fortune.”

“Many years ago a robber was hung for his crimes and his bones have haunted the road from here ever since,” said the king. “And you say he is turned to dust?”

“All is gone save this finger bone in my hat,” said Simon. “He told me stories all night, but when the morning sun touched him as he parted from me he turned to dust and this is all that remains.”

At that the king invited Simon into the palace. He treated him royally and the princess of that castle offered herself in marriage to the brave young man. And so it came to pass that simple Simon became the prince of this distant land and found his fortune. In token of his affection for his new son-in-law the king affixed the royal emblem to his hat.

This is that hat with feathers of the sphinx, skin of the serpent, and bone of the robber, with the king’s emblem emblazoned on its band.

The crowded commons was silent for a long moment. Then the merchant spoke.

“And you say you are that simple man?” he asked.

“Oh no,” Steven answered. “I am Steven George the Dragonslayer. I have traveled far and when the simple prince heard the quest that I am on, he gave me this hat to wear as I face the dragon.

“I see the truth in this,” said the merchant.

The crowded chamber emptied slowly, for each person wanted to touch the fabled hat that Steven wore before he retired and slept soundly for the night.

Chapter 14
Chapter 16

Chapter Fourteen

2007-11-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

ANNOPOLIS WAS A CITY larger than any other Steven had visited. It was surrounded by a wall and soldiers at the gate saluted smartly as the knights galloped past with Steven running behind. The broad road they came in on turned sharply to the left, then to the right and right again. Amid the towering shops and houses closing in on them, Steven quickly lost his sense of direction. There was not just one inn, but a row of hostellers lining the street they came upon and the knights reined in at one bearing a sign with a rooster on it.

Steven was familiar with the routine of the knights by this time and went immediately into the inn to commandeer a table and food for their pleasure as they directed pages in the stable to care for their horses. Steven carried his staff as a symbol of authority when he entered instead of his bow. He was surprised, however, to find the common room had, already, a number of knights seated, eating, drinking, and making loud conversation.

Steven rapped his staff sharply on the floor when he entered and announced, “A table and provisions for six of the kings knights and their humble page.” A few of the knights glanced up, but most ignored him. A lone man sat at one table large enough for the company, so Steven marched up to him and stated boldly, “Knights of the king have need of this table, kind sir.”

The stocky man looked at Steven silently through slitted eyes. “Is that so?” he remarked. “It seems knights of the king need all the tables then,” he said pointing around the room. Indeed, every other table in the common was occupied by knights and their pages. “Where is a poor citizen to get food and drink? Are not the knights the protectors of the citizens?”

Steven realized at once that this might be a heated situation, and not wanting to put his masters in the midst of a fight before they even reached the battlefield, he stepped up the man and bent near his ear.

“These knights have journeyed far and have had naught but my poor cooking on the road. But they are noble and kind and would crave your company at their table, kind sir,” he spoke quietly.

“Indeed we would, brother,” said a voice behind Steven. The leader of Steven’s little band of knights stood behind him.

“Well, who is a humble merchant to rebuff such a kind invitation?” said the man at the table. He rose from his chair and brushing Steven aside reached and embraced the knight. “Welcome to Zannopolis, brother.”

The other knights in the band pulled up chairs and scuffled into places at the table as the innkeeper brought ale for them. Steven immediately began directing the placement of mugs, dishes, and platters of food on the table. Then he took a stand at the head of the table behind the right shoulder of the knight and clutched his staff at his side.

“Steven George,” said the knight, “come sit at the table with us, for as of this meal you have completed your service to us, and while this food is not so tasty as that served us on the trail, it is good, hot, and refreshing.” Steven smiled and sat next to the knight on the offered bench. The knight continued, “Brother, this fine fellow is Steven George, the dragonslayer. Steven, my brother, the Merchant of the North.”

“Honored to meet you,” Steven said nodding at the merchant. “Are you really brothers?” Perhaps the question was blunt, but following the excitement, he completely forgot his manners.

“Brothers as much as two born of the same mother can be,” said the knight.

“Tell me, Dragonslayer,” said the merchant, “how many dragons have fallen beneath your valiant charge?”

“On, none yet, sir,” Steven answered. “I am on the road to find and master my dragon. In that capacity I fell in with these fine gentlemen knights.”

“I fear,” said the knight, “that our insistence that Steven join us on this trek has delayed his own mission. He should be in Byziatica by now and headed on the south road had we not pressed him into service.”

“All roads lead to the dragon,” Steven repeated.

“Perhaps,” said the knight, “but I would speed you on your journey. Brother, are you traveling soon to Byziatica?”

“Indeed, I leave on the morrow,” said the merchant. “I would have gone today but that I tarried to see you arrive. So, you see, you have delayed me on my journey as well!” The company laughed. “Can I possibly assist your friend in his journey? The travel will not be fast, but it is safer by far in this country to travel in company than to venture alone.”

“I hoped you would suggest it,” said the knight. “Steven, my brother journeys often between Zannopolis and Byziatica. And there might be opportunity to practice your other craft as well.”

“Is he then a man of many talents?” asked the merchant. “Does he do more than slay dragons and build cookfires for knights?”

“Indeed, brother, Steven is of those people who make currency of people’s stories. If you have an especially good story, he will surely repay you in kind.”

“Most gladly, sir,” said Steven.

“Then it is settled,” said the merchant. “We will leave Zannopolis when the gates open at dawn and journey southeastward to Byziatica. When we camp along the road, we can exchange stories and both come away wealthier.”

And so it was decided that Steven would leave the knight’s service and join the merchant for the trip to Byziatica. It did not take long for Steven to discover that while not so jovial as his brother, the merchant was pleasant company. But it was becoming more difficult for Steven to keep track of where he was. The merchant had a huge wagon pulled by a team of horses and two guards who rode alongside. The merchant insisted that Steven ride in the wagon with him and thus Steven had no idea how many steps he was from his home any more. For much of the first day, this distressed Steven and he tapped his feet on the floor of the wagon in mock walking. The merchant was amused by this. Finally the merchant asked, “Where are you from, Dragonslayer?”

“I am five hundred ninety-seven thousand, five hundred sixty-five steps, a wagon ride, a boat across a lake, and a fording of the river from home,” Steven said. “That way,” he added, pointing back toward Zannopolis. Knowing the direction from which the knights had come, the merchant quickly computed the approximate direction of Steven’s journey.

“Ah, you mean that way,” the merchant said pointing southwest.

“I came from there,” repeated Steven pointing back northwest toward Zannopolis.

“Steven,” said the merchant, “you don’t have to retrace every step if you journey back. There are many roads that lead to where you want to go.”

“But there is only one by which I have come,” Steven said.

“Ah. Yes,” agreed the merchant. He shrugged his shoulders and urged the horses on more quickly. As dusk was settling over the valley, they came to a small inn in a village almost as small as Steven’s. Here they secured their wagon and left the two guards with it while Steven and the Merchant ate dinner. Then the merchant called for wine and settled into his chair to address Steven.

The Beggar Prince

NCE UPON A TIME in the youth of the world there was a poor beggar named Feirou who lived in a hovel in the shadow of a great palace. Each day the poor man would sit in the streets before the palace and beg for food. Some days he would receive a dry crust of bread or a bean, but other days he would return to his hovel with an empty belly and tears in his eyes. He would watch the wealthy merchants and princes as they made their way to the palace and about their business and think, “If only I were wealthy and wise, I would never have to sit in the path and beg again. But day after day he begged.

Then one day the king announced that his daughter, now being of marriageable age, would seek a husband among the men of the kingdom. Those who were eligible were to present themselves at the palace in exactly one year to make their proposal.

Now the king’s daughter was kind and beautiful, and never failed when she passed the beggar to give him food or coins. And so the beggar thought that he would have to win the heart of this woman and become her husband so that he would never have to beg again. And so the beggar left behind his hovel and the palace and set his face into the wide world to seek his fortune.

When he had traveled many days away from the palace, and was no closer to his fortune than he had ever been it seemed, he came upon an old woman who asked of him, “Please give me something to eat, for I am very hungry.” The beggar had looked in his empty pockets, for he had had nothing to eat for two days. Deep in a fold of the cloth, Feirou found a crumb of bread and this he offered to the old woman.

“I have nothing, but such as I have I will share with you.”

The old woman accepted the crumb and gobbled it down. Then she said, “For your kindness in sharing with me, I will share with you.” And she led him to a little cottage and set before him a dinner such as he had never had before. He ate venison and potatoes, bread and butter, carrots and spinach. And when he had eaten his fill, she gave him a place to sleep.

Feirou slept soundly and awoke with a start out in the forest under a tree. He thought at first it had all been a dream, but beside him was a small packet of bread and cheese and there was a single copper coin in his pocket.

He walked on through the world for many days. The bread and cheese had long since been eaten and he found no place where he could trade the coin for food. He became very hungry. Then he met an old man by the side of the road.

“Give me something to eat,” cried the old man. Feirou searched in his pocket and found a crumb of bread and a flake of cheese. These he offered the old man.

“I have nothing, but such as I have I will share with you.”

The old man snatched the crumb and cheese from Feirou’s hand and gobbled them up. Then he said, “You have been kind to share with me that which you had. Now I will share with you.” The old man took Feirou off the path and before long he was seated at a table in a little house with more food than Feirou had ever seen before. When he had eaten his fill he was given a soft bed to sleep in and fell instantly into deep slumber.

When Feirou awoke in the morning, he again thought it must have been a dream, for he had slept under a tree deep in the forest. But beside him was a packet of bread and meat and when Feirou pulled the coin from his pocket it was not copper but silver. Feirou continued his pilgrimage seeking his fortune for he reasoned rightly enough that a single silver coin was not enough to gain him an audience with the princess. His journey was hard and food was scarce, and all too soon Feirou found himself hungry. He had gone as far as he could when he spied a small child beside the path. The child looked plaintively at Feirou and begged, “Please give me something to eat.” Feirou searched his pockets and found a dried and stringy scrap of meat and a crumb of bread and offered them to the child.

“I have nothing, but such as I have I will share with you.”

The child snatched the crumbs and gobbled them up. Then he said, “You have been kind to one less fortunate than yourself. Therefore I shall be kind to you. The child took Feirou to a little cottage and laid a spread of food so royal that Feirou was overwhelmed. He ate pheasant pies and pastries until he was sated and then the child showed him to a bed softer yet than any he had known. Feirou slept so soundly that he did not wake up until late the next day. As on the previous occasions, he found himself in the middle of a glade thinking he must have been dreaming. But a pouch of fine pheasant pies was next to him and in his pocket he found the coin was not silver, but gold.

Now Feirou decided that he was as rich as he was likely to get and he returned to the palace just days before the princess was to choose her husband. He could not appear before the princess in his rags, so he went to a little old tailor and offered him the gold coin in exchange for new clothes, which the tailor gladly provided. Feirou left the tailor’s shop and people stopped to admire his new clothes. When they left him, they went to the tailor to have clothes made for themselves.

Then Feirou passed a bakery where a little old woman stopped him and said, “Kind gentleman, please stop and eat in my shop. For such a fine gentleman in my pie shop will certainly attract others.” And so Feirou ate at the pie shop and, indeed, people passing by, seeing such a fine gentleman eating there stopped and ate there as well. The old woman sold all her wares.

Feirou was tired and was just turning to go to his old hovel when a boy ran up to him and exclaimed, “Good sir, the master of yon inn begs that you would rest your head there for the night, for certainly you are here to ask the princess for her hand and when people see that you are staying with him others will come as well.” So Feirou followed the boy and was given the best room at the inn. Sure enough, others saw that he was staying there and soon the inn was full for the night.

The next morning, Feirou descended the stairs at the inn to find a crowded common room where people bowed to him and offered him the things that he needed, be it food, drink, or companionship. Then a great parade formed around him to escort him to the palace to meet the princess.

Feirou knelt before the princess and asked for her hand. The princess asked him haughtily, what man are you that would ask the hand of a princess.

“I am a poor man,” said Feirou, “who will share what I have with you.”

“And what do you have that you would share?” asked the princess.

Then Feirou answered, “I have an old woman in the forest that I shared a crumb of bread with who gave me a copper coin, an old man that I shared a bit of bread and some cheese with who gave me a silver coin, and a child that I shared a scrap of bread and some jerky with who gave me a gold coin. I have a tailor who has given me coins, a baker who has given me food, and a hosteller who has given me lodging. And I have all these people who have fine people of your kingdom who have accompanied me to seek your hand, for it is true that what I have more than anything else that I would share with you is my love.”

And having thus spoken, the princess was so moved that she willingly gave the beggar his hand and he became the beloved son of the king. And wherever Feirou went, if anyone asked of him, he searched his pockets and shared what he had, whether it was food or coins or a kerchief to dry an eye, for he never lacked for anything that he reached in his pocket to find.

For a long moment Steven was silent as he considered this very unmerchantlike story. Finally he spoke. “So is that how you became such a successful merchant,” he asked.

“Mercy no, man!” exclaimed the merchant. “I look for profit and trade for better than I have. You can’t succeed in trade by giving things away.”

“Oh,” said Steven, disappointedly.

“However,” continued the merchant, “there is a fundamental truth in the story. You will succeed more grandly if you are good to people than if you are bad to them. If everyone hates you for your success, you will not have it long. Everyone needs to love you because your success is good for them.”

On these words, Steven retired to think on his great mission to slay the dragon.

Chapter 13
Chapter 15

Chapter Thirteen

2007-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

EANING AGAINST A TREE at the top of a rise, Steven surveyed the land before him looking for a suitable place to camp. The knights had to stop to rest the horses in the middle of the afternoon, but Steven had kept running ahead to prepare their evening camp. Below him a small river crossed the road and it appeared to be a frequent campsite for travelers along this way. It would certainly be appropriate for the knights.

Steven looked back the way he had come and saw the knights in the distance riding toward him He squinted his eyes and cocked his head, but he could not make them look like a dragon now that he had been in their company for two days. He could not understand how he could have mistaken them that first evening. He turned his face back to the North and jogged off down the hill toward the intended campsite.

When he reached the river he saw that not only was the grass matted down around a fire-circle, but that the camp appeared to have been abandoned recently as ashes were still warm in the pit. He quickly went about restoring flames to the firepit and setting up his cooking station. Steven had seen something else from his stop up high and taking his bow and arrow he slipped off into the woods upstream from the river. A small herd of fallow deer standing about waist high were drinking and grazing near the river. Steven brought his hunting skills to bear and brought down a small buck as the others scattered before him. He gutted the deer and carted it to the camp. At the top of the rise, he could see the knights beginning their descent. The deer was spitted and turning on the fire before they reached him.

The knights cared for their horses and set up their camp around the fire Steven had prepared. By the time they were ready to settle in, the sun had gone down and the smell of roasting dear filled the valley. The knights cut strips of the savory meat from the carcass and accepted apples that Steven had gathered while the meat was roasting. When they had eaten their fill, the knights sat around the fire waiting expectantly.

The Twilight Drummers

NCE UPON A TIME, very long ago in the far southern reaches of the world, there was a country where water was more plentiful than dry land. In this country there was a village-kingdom called Faysea Mound that was completely surrounded by water as far as the eye could see. Few people have ever been to that isolated kingdom, and fewer still have returned, for to reach it you must sail in a boat that glides without oars from shore to shore, and the citizens are not friendly like we know in our time and place.

For many generations, most people knew of this island kingdom only because of the twilight drums. Just as the sun was setting beyond the mountains and the land fell still for the night, people would hear the drumming of the Fayseans faintly disturbing the quiet across the water. To hear those drums was to feel a chill and stories grew up around the legend of the Twilight Drums. If, when you heard the drums, you could not get home before the drumming ceased, the chances were you would never get home again. So went the stories that were told to children.

And so it was no surprise that people on the shores opposite the island stayed close to home in the evenings. They went inside when the drums might be heard and talked loudly, sang, or even fought with each other so that they would not hear the drums of Faysea Mound.

Near the shore where the twilight drums could be heard, was the town of Wildmoor Beach. There was never a need for a curfew in this town for at sunset every citizen was inside with as many other citizens has he could be, drinking, singing, laughing, and talking to drown out any chance they would hear the drums. Stories about the Fayseans had grown to impossible proportions in Wildmoor Beach through the generations. Some said the Fayseans were eight feet tall with skin the color of bronze. They were ferocious warriors who carried spears tipped with bone points. Some said they carried the heads of their enemies on belts around their waists. And most dreadful of all, their eyes were coal black and to look into them was to be lost forever.

But the truth was, no one in Wildmoor Beach had ever actually seen a Faysean. No one knew what they really looked like or how fierce they really were.

That is, no one until the fateful night that Tramis the Potter was caught.

Now Tramis was a kind, black-haired man with a jovial spirit and a liking for good cider. And to Tramis, the longer the cider had fermented, the better it was. Some speculated that his chosen profession suited him, for he needed a great number of jugs to keep his own fermenting cider. In fact, Tramis had discovered early in his career that he could trade his jugs far more favorably if they contained cider than he could if they were empty.

On this particular day, Tramis had been on the journey to the larger town of Rosebridge to trade his pots. It was twenty-four thousand steps from Rosebridge to Wildmoor Beach, so Tramis began his journey home early in the morning, pulling his handcart filled with the goods for which he had traded his pots. Unfortunately, Tramis had not been able to trade all the pots he took with him. Half his cart was still jammed with the jugs full of cider, while the other half contained meats, cloth, vegetables, and dry goods. In Wildmoor Beach, Tramis would continue to trade these goods for other things that he desired.

The cart was heavy and the morning was hot, as it tends to be in the Southlands. Tramis had gone only a few thousand steps pulling the heavy cart when he sat to rest. He was very thirsty, so he took a jug from the cart and promptly drained the contents. He put the empty in the cart and started off again. He had gone only a couple of thousand steps when he had to stop again. Again he drained a jug as he rested, replaced the empty in the cart. This time when Tramis started off, he realized the cart was much lighter. Of course, two of the jugs were now empty.

From here, Tramis stopped every two or three thousand steps, rested and drained another jug. Unfortunately, this slowed the progress of the potter. Not only was he stopping frequently, he was walking more slowly, his cart weaving from side to side of the narrow path as he stumbled forward.

The sun was setting when he topped a rise where he could actually see Wildmoor Beach ahead of him, but still at least three thousand steps away. It was here, as Tramis drained the last jug of cider in his cart that he heard the drums of Faysea Mound carrying across the open water.

Tramis hitched himself to the cart and set off at a hard pace, but in his cider-induced state, he often stumbled. And so it was that still over a thousand steps from his home, Tramis fell and struck his head on a rock. He lay in the path only partly awake, struggling to command his reluctant limbs to obey him. First one hand then the other pushed him to his knees. One foot then the other crawled up under him until he was squatting between the traces of his cart. He was about to thrust his body upward and continue his journey when he realized the world had gone silent. No birds twittered. No wolves howled. No wind blew. No drums beat.

Tramis involuntarily gazed out over the dark waters. There he thought he saw a flock of geese skimming the water as they came toward the mainland. He was frozen in fear as they rapidly approached the shore. Once there, they spread into the hills surrounding the town of Wildmoor Beach making strange whistling sounds as they moved. Slowly they moved forward and Tramis realized they had blocked the path to his home and were stealthily surrounding him.

He rose to his feet fighting the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him and lurched forward with his cart. But the axel caught on the very same rock that he had fallen on and the cart jerked to a stop bringing him once again to his knees. This time when he looked up, he saw that it was not geese, but men that swarmed up the beach and over the hills, and yes, even up the path on which Tramis knelt. Each man was naked save for a hat on his head, covered with feathers so that Tramis had mistaken them for geese. From each hat came the soft whistle as the men moved up the path blocking Tramis from his home. Tramis quaked where he knelt and with the quantity of cider that he had drunk, promptly wet himself on the path.

The strange men said not a word, but encircled Tramis and his cart. They made strange gestures and low guttural sounds that Tramis did not understand. The longer they spoke and Tramis remained silent, the more agitated the men seemed to become. Suddenly the man nearest to Tramis reached out to grab his hair and pull his head back while shouting into Tramis’s face. He reached his hand back as though to strike Tramis.

He hid his eyes awaiting the fatal blow from the Fayseans, but as it did not come and did not come, he opened them a slit, then full wide again. He saw the shadows of the men in the faint moonlight as they slipped away into the woods and continued to kneel in amazement as they emerged again and flowed in a single wave down to the beach and out across the water of the sea.

Now Tramis put all his considerable strength into his cart, dislodging it from the stone that held it and rushing headlong down the last thousand steps into Wildmoor Beach and to his home. He opened his door and turned to quickly unload his cart into his little room. What a surprise to find that it was empty. The Fayseans had taken every dried strip of meat, every bolt of fabric, and, indeed, every empty pottery jug. In their place they had left one of the strange feathered hats that Tramis had seen on their heads. He picked up the hat and examined it. Just a sheepskin hat decorated with feathers and odd bits, including a bone that was shaped into a whistle. It was this that made the soft whistling sounds as the Fayseans moved inland and back to the shore. Then Tramis realized that for all his labor, his trading, and his transportation, all he had to show was this one feathered hat. He kicked the cart and pitched the headdress into a corner of his room. Then, drunk on the cider and fear, he staggered through the door and passed out.

It was morning two days later that Tramis awoke. His neighbors did not know that he had come back home and assumed he was still in Rosebridge. It was two more days before Tramis could face leaving his little home and showing his face in the town. And it was a week after that before he spoke to anyone. Whenever anyone spoke to him, he scuttled back into his house and closed the door.

The new timidity of Tramis was a puzzlement to his neighbors who were used to the potter’s friendly banter. They coaxed and cajoled him until at last one evening before sunset he joined them at the local inn to drink some cider. After he had drunk, Tramis started to tell the astounded townspeople about his adventure on the hill outside of town. At first the people were awed by the tale, but as Tramis described the Fayseans there was first a smile, and at the mention of the feathered hats, there was outright laughter. They nudged each other saying what a joker their potter was and how he had them going for a time.

Tramis grew more and more embarrassed and, determined to prove his story, rushed out of the inn and ran to his home to retrieve the feathered hat. Jamming the artifact on his head, Tramis rushed outside to return to the inn just as he heard the drums stop.

Tramis did not make it back to the inn that night. He was inexorably drawn toward the shore where he could see in the moonlight the shapes he had first mistaken for geese. There on the shore Tramis stripped off his clothes and awaited the Fayseans. As they stepped onto the shore, they flooded past Tramis and up into the hills where they hunted and brought fresh meat back to the beach. All this while, Tramis went with them, blending in, though his pale body shown in the moonlight next to their tawny skin. But when the beckoned him to join him as they set back out across the water, Tramis backed away, reclothing himself and returning home.

Often thereafter, Tramis joined the Fayseans on their nightly hunts. Sometimes he brought other goods to trade, and eventually he restored his position in the town. He never again mentioned the hat of the Fayseans. Whether Tramis ever dared to journey across the water to Faysea Mound he never told.

Many years later, Tramis moved to Rosebridge and married. His descendents moved further inland and northward. And with them came the hat of the Fayseans and the miraculous story that went with it.

That hat is this hat and I am the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son whose ancestry and heredity goes back to Tramis the potter.

The knights were silent and nodded to each other.

“I see the truth in this story,” said the leader of the knights. Then he reached to his own breast and removed a brooch. “Steven George, Dragonslayer,” he continued, “you have served our company well on this journey. Tomorrow we will come to Zannopolis and your service will be ended. This emblem will identify you as a man who has served the king and therefore will give you comfort and passage when you come to Byziatica. I add it to this fine hat of yours in hopes that some of its mystery will return to us who ride to war.”

Steven thanked the knight and finished preparing the deer in dried strips so they could carry it with them and eat as they needed. Then they retired to their bedrolls.

Chapter 12
Chapter 14

Chapter Twelve

2007-11-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

NIGHTS, CHARGERS, AND STEVEN set off northward as dawn lightened the eastern sky in the morning. Steven’s pack and staff were loaded on one of the pack animals. He kept his bow and ran at the side of the trotting horses. Without his pack on his back, Steven felt somehow lighter and thought that he could run all day with no weight on his back. In fact, it proved that the horses, loaded with the weight of their own armor and that of the Knights needed to stop and rest more often than Steven did. During the day he brought down a grouse from beside the road and two rabbits. When they stopped to camp for the night, Steven added a duck.

Much to the surprise of the knights, Steven did not spit the animals and turn them over the fire, but used the camp pot the knights brought to create a stew. Into this he cut the meat and added turnips and carrots that grew nearby. He surreptitiously added a pinch of the wisewoman’s herbs to the simmering pot of stew. By the time the knights had finished caring for their horses, the smell of cooking wafted throughout the clearing where they camped.

By the time the food was served, the knights were anxiously stamping their feet on the ground like horses champing at the bit. The stew was thick and chunky and they set to with a hearty appetite.

“This food is better than any served at the king’s high table,” exclaimed one of the knights. “Our dragonslayer is a wizard of the cookpot!” Steven silently thanked the old woman for her herbs.

“Much as I would like to press the dragonslayer for the story of his hat,” said the leader of the knights, “after such a tasty meal it is only fair that we regale him with a tale as tall as the trees that surround us.” The knights wagged their heads in agreement.

“The Battle of Turin Ridge,” suggested one.

“No, The Unknown Soldier,” called another.

“Why not offer the best?” asked the leader. They agreed. And the knight began his tale.

The Unwinnable War

NCE UPON A TIME, when the world was young and a man might walk all day and not see the end of his holdings, there lived a mighty patriarch who had two sons. These two boys were alike in every way, so much so that even when they were born there was so much confusion that afterward no one knew which was oldest an which was youngest. This created enormous problems on the twins’ naming day. No one knew which was which. So the patriarch, despairing of ever knowing which was the eldest drew lots over the boys and gave the first drawn a tattoo on his right hand saying, “This is Dakshina, the right hand of my clan. He shall have the portion of the eldest.” The second twin he tattooed on the left hand saying, “This is Vama, the left hand of my clan. He shall have the portion of the younger.” And so it was established and the boys were ever after known as Dak and Vam, being distinguished from each other only by the tattoos.

Now these tattoos when seen separately were no more than a decorated band on the back of the hand. But when the boys clasped their hands in friendship, the band seemed to entwine the two together. And so the boys grew up, admired by all and feared by some, for they were rowdy children. And all this time people bowed to them, but a little lower to Dak than to Vam. It may seem inevitable, then, that a rivalry grew up between the two brothers, and that no matter how much they loved each other and protected each other, each was slightly jealous of the other—Vam that Dak was more respected, and Dak that Vam was more free of responsibility and could do what he wanted to.

As these little jealousies are prone to do, these turned more serious as time went on. On one occasion the grown boys sat looking over a vast plot of land speculating about who could run to the tree at the end the fastest. Now Dak was known to be strongest, but Vam was often more clever. When Dak proposed a race to see who could reach the tree first. Vam pretended to disdain the idea. “Ah, you will only defeat me and laugh at my weakness,” scoffed Vam.

“If you will race me, I will give you the finest horse in my stable if you win,” Dak encouraged Vam.

“Not for any horse,” said Vam, “but because you are my brother I will race you.” They set off running, but Dak easily outdistanced his brother.

Next the brothers were brought the best of the horses in their stable and went for a ride. “Brother,” said Dak, “let us race our horses to the same tree. You cannot complain that I am stronger, for our horses are evenly matched.”

“Yes,” said Vam, “but you are a better horseman. I will not race you.”

Wanting to compete, Dak coaxed his brother again. “If you race me to that tree and win,” Dak said, “I will give you the finest flock on the mountains.”

“Not for all the flocks of our kingdom,” said Vam, “but because you are my brother I will race you.” The set off at a gallop, but Dak easily won the race.

That night as the brothers sat at the table, Dak said to his brother, “Let us see who can eat the most meat.”

But Vam would have nothing to do with this competition saying, “You have worked harder than I and have a heartier appetite. I cannot eat as much meat as you.”

“If you can eat more meat than I can,” said Dak, “I will give you the most beautiful of my wives and concubines as your own.”

“Not for all the maidens in the kingdom,” said Vam, “but because you are my brother I will eat with you.” The meat was sliced and set before them in equal portions, but Dak had soon eaten far more than Vam.

“Brother,” said Dak, “It it is good that the lot has fallen to me to be our father’s heir. I am faster. I am a better horseman. I have a heartier appetite. Is there anything at which you are better than I am?”

“Nothing, I fear,” said Vam. “I am sure that if we both fetched water from the river and brought it to our father, your urn would have more in it than mine.”

“Now how could that happen?” asked Dak. “Surely this is a competition at which we could at least be equal.” But Vam declined the completion.

“You have beaten me on foot, on horseback, and at the table,” Vam said. “How can you humiliate me more?”

“Brother,” said Dak, boldly. “If you join with me in this contest, I will give you my birthright as heir to our father if he judges that you have more water in your urn than I.”

“Not for all the kingdoms on earth,” said Vam, “but because you are my brother I will carry water from the river.”

Now Dak had been waited on all his life and had never carried water from the river, but Vam had observed the servants in their duties often, and Vam was clever. He gave to Dak a new unglazed pot, but kept for himself an old water pot that the servants had often used. His brother held this as a sign of the high esteem in which Vam held him and accepted the new pot as it were his due; and the brothers journeyed to the river for water.

At the river each had filled their water jug and hoisted it, still dripping to their shoulder. The day was hot and the journey uphill to get from the river back to their father’s palace. Vam sweated beneath his load, but Dak seemed to sweat more. Water poured from his back and shoulder where he carried the jug, but he strode boldly up the slope proud that he could carry such a large jug of water with such ease. Vam struggled behind his brother.

Dak reached their father first and took his cup to offer his father water. But there was scarcely enough water left in his jug to fill the cup, the water having sweated out through the porous clay. Then Vam set his full jug before his father and poured out cup after cup of water.

“Dak!” exclaimed his father. “How can you have done this? For now I must make Vam my heir.” And having so said, their father was so overcome with grief that he died straightaway.

“Now,” said Vam, “I shall rule in our father’s stead.”

Dak was so furious that he raced to his stable and left on his steed with all his wives and concubines following. They set their camp on the far reaches of the little kingdom and his camp grew into a mighty and warlike city.

Vam was content to let the people do as they would in his father’s palace and the people grew fat and lazy, so the day came when the army of Dak rode against his brother and camped without the city. Vam was furious that his brother would make war against him and rode out with his soldiers. The two brothers met in combat.

Dak soon discovered that even though he had often easily defeated Vam in races and riding, his brother was a formidable foe, for Vam had never shown his true strength to his vain brother. Eventually the armies fell back from the field to nurse their wounded, but the brothers remained in front of the palace swinging their swords in earnest.

For three days the brothers fought until exhausted by their ordeal each let his guard slip and the other slew him in a single simultaneous blow. Both brothers lay dead in the field of battle and their armies retreated away from each other.

But both brothers had large families, and each believed the other had taken what was rightfully theirs. In the next generation, one army came at the other and was vanquished. In the next generation the other army had come at the first and was vanquished. The families grew into mighty nations, both claiming the same country as their own. For generations and for centuries, one has fought the other, sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated. But never undisputed. Sometimes a generation would pass in peace and the world would think the war had been won, but in the next generation it is renewed again. For as long as the two nations exist, one cannot abide the other. Neither can surrender and neither can be victorious.

That is the battle we ride to fight this day.

The camp was silent but for the restless stomping of the chargers and the low crackle of the dying fire. One of the knights began a plaintive song and the others joined in. Steven could hear in their music the deep yearning they had for their homeland that was occupied by the enemy. When the song had ended, Steven dared ask a question.

“But Sir Knight,” he began in respect, “if the war is unwinnable, why do you ride to fight in it?”

“Ha ha!” laughed the leader of the knights, “because this time we will avenge our ancestors and drive the usurpers from the land forever. This time it will be different!” The knights cheered and Steven crawled off to his bedroll and slept fitfully as he tried to determine what story he would tell on the morrow.

Chapter 11
Chapter 13

Chapter Eleven

2007-11-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

UIETLY THE LITTLE MAN AND HIS wife sat staring at Steven as his story came to an end. Steven thought at first they would not move, that they had become statues as he spoke. So intently did they look into each other’s eyes that they missed the tear that gathered in the corner of Steven’s eye.

“I can see the truth in this,” Upik said at long last. Rayna nodded.

“I will pack you a lunch before you go,” she said hastily and snatched Steven’s cold bowl and cup from the table as she went behind the fireplace wall. He could hear chopping and clattering as he and Upik continued to sit at the table.

“Now to get to where you want to be,” said Upik, “you will follow the footpath from our home around the north end of the lake. You will come to the road you were on when I found you, but at the other end of the lake. You can only go one way on it, so there isn’t too much chance you will get lost. It is about two day’s journey until you meet the low road again. That’s the road you should have taken from the manor house. Bear right when you reach the road and you will come into Lower Floria. Most of the people who lived in this valley before the flood moved down there. They know what it is like to be a stranger and will treat you kindly. I’ll tell you straight-way, though, they don’t know any stories other than the one Rayna told you, so there’s no sense trying to trade for something you already have. Beyond Lower Floria, you will start to head east, and the further east you go the more people you will meet. I thought we lived at the edge of the world out here, but you’ve shown us that the edge is much further away than we thought.”

Steven was a little surprised at the abruptness with which the woodcutter and his wife ushered him out the door. She gave him a small parcel of food for the journey and Upik pointed out the path. Then, as Steven turned to bid them farewell, he saw them disappear back inside their modest little home. He set his foot on the path. Three hundred forty-nine thousand one hundred thirteen. Three hundred forty-nine thousand one hundred fourteen. Steven’s pace picked up and he as he hit one hundred ten steps per minutes, the ground again flew beneath him. He was headed downhill.

True to what Upik had told him, Steven met the high road in only seven thousand one hundred thirty-three steps. He camped for the night after twenty-six thousand seven hundred fifty-two steps. He feasted on the sandwiches Rayna had fixed for him and early next morning he was hiking again. He ended his second day having traveled four hundred thousand nine hundred sixty-one steps from home, across a lake and across a river. As the sun began to set and Steven set up his camp, he could see, away in the distance, traces of smoke in the air. He would be at the town of Lower Floria tomorrow.

Steven awoke to the unpleasant experience of having been dusted with snow. Having lived all his life in lowlands by comparison to this region, he had seldom seen snow. He soon discovered that it made the old road very slippery. He had fallen on his back twice within a hundred steps of camp. It slowed his progress significantly. He had seemed to fly down from the upper reaches of the mountain, but this day he carefully placed one foot in front of the other until the sun had risen high enough in the sky to melt the snow gathered in the path.

It was a weary man that stumbled into Lower Floria as the sun was setting. It had been only sixteen thousand four hundred forty-five steps to the village from last night’s camp, and when he stumbled into the inn in this village he had come four hundred seventeen thousand four hundred six steps across a lake and across a river from home. He knew exactly where he was.

But he had never stayed in an inn before. In Lastford, he slept in the barn with Jasper. He had camped along the road from Lastford to the home of Upik and Rayna, and they had let him sleep on the floor in their home. He had camped from their house to Lower Floria. But in all Steven’s life he had not stayed in an inn. His village had no visitors, and so had no need of an inn.

Many people were gathered, eating and drinking and Steven inquired if he might have food and a place to lay his bedroll for the night. He was surprised when the innkeeper asked to see his coins. In fact, Steven had forgotten that he had coins from his labor at the manor. Steven proudly showed the four silver coins he had and the innkeeper promptly took two and motioned him to a seat in the corner. Steven sat and quietly ate the stew and bread he was served, warming up as the evening went on. It seemed strange to Steven that no one paid the least attention to him. But not only were these people used to seeing travelers, many of them were travelers themselves. They saw nothing more unusual in Steven than in themselves. And his hat, while garnering a couple of curious glances, was really no stranger than other headgear and modes of dress that he saw around him.

After the meal, Steven was shown a small room where he could spread his bedroll. The innkeeper bade him good night, closed the door and left him. It was a strange night in Steven’s mind.

But the days that followed proved just as strange. For now, Steven traveled eastward on the road and encountered other travelers on a regular basis. But it seemed that the more people he saw, the fewer saw him. Occasionally a traveler would greet him as they passed. Sometimes as he caught up with a slower traveler they would walk together some few steps, but Steven now was feeling a more urgent need to press forward, and soon even those he spoke to were soon forgotten.

After his first night in an inn, Steven realized that he would have to get more coins or stick to camping. He chose the latter. He couldn’t really imagine why people valued the coins, but he knew he had traded a day’s labor for the four coins and then traded two of them for a meal and a cold room to sleep in. If he had to work half a day for every night’s lodging, he would never get around the mountains to go back south toward the dragon.

He had traveled five hundred eight thousand one hundred fifty five steps on his journey when he saw the dragon.

The sun was behind Steven and he cast a long shadow on the road ahead. He was looking for a place to camp, but this particular stretch of road had a steep rise on his right and an almost sheer drop on the left. There was nothing but to traverse the passage and hope he could find a place to camp for the night after dark.

Then he caught a glint of light coming toward him. It sparkled like jewels in the evening sun. It was moving fast toward him with wings outstretched, skimming the ground. Fire sparked from the ground beneath it. Steven hastily strung his bow and nocked an arrow. This time a miss might easily cost him his life, he thought. As the dragon drew nearer, the thunder of its approach shook the ground. It had jeweled armor and two heads. It waved taloned arms and its armor jangled above the thunder of its passing.

Steven was having a difficult time drawing the bow, shuffling backward to try to find purchase where he could steadily draw the bow. In his haste, he tripped over his discarded backpack and the arrow loosed up into the air. And then the dragon was upon him.

No, dragons, for there were at least six of the four-legged, two-headed beasts. As he fumbled for another arrow, the lead reached out with a taloned claw and swatted the bow from his hand. Steven prepared to die.

“Who fires on the king’s knights?” called the lead as he swept a gauntleted hand up to his face and pulled his visor back, revealing the face of a man, not a dragon. Then Steven realized he was riding a horse, but a horse unlike anything Steven had ever seen. It wore armor like its rider and skirts that billowed about its knees and clanged together as the pleats moved with its pace. The knight astride the charger wore armor that shone in the sun. He carried a shield across one arm and a sword was drawn in the other. His cape billowed out behind him as he rode.

“I am Steven George the dragonslayer, sir,” Steven said weakly. “I thought you were the dragon bearing down on me.”

“A dragonslayer?” exclaimed one of the other knights. “How many dragons have you slain, man?”

“None yet, sir,” Steven said, “but I am on my way to find and slay the dragon that threatens my village, five hundred eight thousand one hundred fifty-five steps that way, across a lake and across a river.”

“Well, dragonslayer,” spoke the lead knight, “now you are Steven George prisoner of the king’s army. Pick up your things and march ahead of us to the town that lies a league behind you. Before this night is over, we will know why you seek a dragon that threatens your village when you are so far from that village.” Steven picked up his bow and shouldered his pack and turned obediently back in the direction he had just come. Five hundred eight thousand one hundred fifty-six. Five hundred eight thousand one hundred fifty-seven. Steven had retraced two thousand three hundred forty-nine steps when they came to the inn in the village Steven had passed through only a while before. Now, however, the sun had sunk beneath the edge of the mountain westward and darkness enveloped the little lodge. Servants emerged from the inn to take the knights’ horses and the knights were welcomed into the inn with an elaborate show of respect. They were seated nearest the fire and served steaming bowls of lamb in thick gravy over turnips. Steven was seated between two of the knights and given a bowl of the savory stew as well.

“Now, dragonslayer,” said the leader of the knights. “It is a noble thing to protect your village from a dragon, but tell us why you are five hundred eight thousand steps away from the place that is threatened?”

“Five hundred ten thousand five hundred four,” Steven corrected him automatically.

“Very well. Five hundred and so on…” said the knight. The knight waited patiently as Steven explained how he had been unable to cross the river near his village, had gone north along the river until he was able to cross, had become lost in the rain storm and was told to keep right, how he had come to the lake and been ferried across and how he had found his way back to the main road and was trying to get back around the mountains to the river again. The knights nodded, grinned, occasionally laughed.

“Yes, that would work,” said one of the knights. “Once he passes through Byziatica he could take the south road toward Tasmyrica. The desert caravan route branches of Southeast and would lead him back to the great river eventually.”

Steven never knew there were so many roads in the world.

“Very well,” said the knight leader. “As knights of the king it is our duty to protect the citizens of the kingdom from all evil, including beasts of prey. Therefore, I believe we should put Steven George the dragonslayer on the right road to his destiny.” The other knights agreed. “But,” continued the knight, “there is a price to be paid.” He looked sternly at Steven. Steven solemnly reached into his pouch and produced his two remaining silver coins and offered them to the knight. The knights all laughed uproariously. When they had gasped for breath and ordered another round of tankards for their company, the lead knight continued.

“We are knights of the king,” he said. “We take coin from no common man no matter how noble his mission. That is not the debt we will collect. You have drawn your bow on the king’s liegemen. We accept that it was a misunderstanding, but it was one that must not happen again. Therefore you will serve us for three days. We will head north from here, out of your way, but into an area in which villages are sparse. We need to eat. Therefore, you will accompany us as our huntsman. Find food, make camp, provide for us on this journey. In three days we will arrive at Zannopolis. From there, you will continue back southeastward three days and you will arrive in Byziatica. The difference will cost you three days more than it would cost to go directly from here to Byziatica. That is the price for not knowing a knight from a dragon. Are you agreed?”

“All roads lead to my dragon,” Steven recalled the wisewoman saying. “This road is as good as any other.”

“Perhaps while we are camped at night,” said one of the knights, “you will tell us the story of your fantasmic hat.”

Steven hesitated.

“Is that story part of the price I must pay for my crime?” Steven asked warily.

“Not at all,” said the lead knight. “It is a companionly request from your fellow travelers.” Then the knight lit up in comprehension. “Ah! You are one of those rustics who deal in stories as currency! No, we would not steal a story from you, dragonslayer. But perhaps we could trade a story for a story, no?” Steven grinned. This was what he understood.

“It is agreed,” he said enthusiastically.

Chapter 10
Chapter 12

Chapter Ten

2007-11-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

ARLY THE NEXT MORNING, the little woodcutter and his tall wife were seated at the table waiting when Steven woke up. He was served a hot mash for breakfast and ate heartily. When he had finished, his dish sat empty at his place. It was obvious that the couple had no intentions of moving from the table until Steven had told his story.

“Don’t we need to work this morning?” Steven asked. “I’ll happily help you chop wood.”

“Oh no,” said Upik. “There is no reason to chop wood today.”

“We have very few visitors up here since the castle sank beneath the lake,” said Rayna. “We would much rather listen to you. Please tell us about your hat.”

Steven had tossed restlessly all night trying to think of a good story to tell the two, and had come up with no ideas. The truth was that he had suddenly been overwhelmed with loneliness when he saw the man and wife acting as though they were one person, and he had dreamt all night of the lover he had left three hundred forty-nine thousand one hundred twenty-one steps ago across the lake and across the river. But he had agreed to the bargain and would have to begin soon. He took another long drink of the hot beverage Rayna had served with breakfast and began.

The Temporary Wife

NCE UPON A TIME, almost out of memory and before all journeys began, there lived an ogre named Bimptwiss. Once every four years, Bimptwiss would emerge from his cave in a valley where the fog never cleared and come to the town of Lorbridge. There he would stand outside the barricade the townspeople had erected against him and demand that they send out their fiercest warrior to do battle with him. If he was defeated, he promised, he would go away and leave the town forever. But if he were not, he would feast on the bones of the unfortunate warrior. If the townspeople refused to send a champion to meet the ogre, then Bimptwiss would rampage through the town killing and eating whom he would.

In the course of time, warrior after warrior was killed and eaten by the vicious ogre. All the truly strong warriors were gone and the village sent any unfortunate victim they could entice out into the field to meet the ogre. Finally, they resolved that they would choose the victim by lottery. One year and one day before the ogre’s arrival at the barricade to the town, all the villagers between 19 and 22 were assembled and the mayor of the town would distribute lots to each. The unfortunate who drew the black pebble would be designated as the sacrifice to the ogre. But during the intervening year, that person would be treated like a prince. He or she would have whatever was desired, and everyone in the village did what they could to make what they considered their sacrifice’s last year as pleasant as possible.

It may seem strange, but so lavishly did the people treat their would-be hero that young people competed for the right. In fact, as word of the quadrennial festival spread through the land, people from near and far came to the town for the lottery, hoping that they would win the right to be the champion selected to fight the ogre.

And so it was that a young man named Gareth came to Lorbridge to seek great, though temporary, fame and fortune. Even though the lottery was supposed to be random and impartial, hopefuls competed with each other in races, mock battles, and exotic cooking demonstrations. They created special crafts that they sold in the market so the townspeople could show their support by purchasing the trinkets. Gareth was not the most popular candidate in the foray, but he was a likeable lad and had his share of supporters. In the races he consistently was within the first three across the finish line. In mock battles, he was often the one who stood most staunchly in support of the winner. And, though some said it was an acquired taste, his curried sheep’s eyes was one of the most unique dishes sampled during the festival.

Few people, however, wanted to wear the peaked hats he made from sheepskin and sold in the market. Lorbridge was not a particularly cold place and people preferred less ostentatious headgear. Gareth, however, wore his own hat constantly and thus was one of the most recognizable candidates in the fray.

The big day of the lottery arrived and Gareth stood among the candidates. In order to make the lottery more exciting, the townspeople had decided to have qualifying rounds in the lottery. After each competition, one candidate was eliminated. Gareth had survived each elimination round and now with fourteen candidates still in the running, the mayor passed out a hat that had seven black stones and seven white stones. Each candidate drew a stone. Then from another hat with an equal number of stones, the festival princess drew a stone. Its color would determine which group of candidates would proceed to the final round. The stone was white and Gareth cautiously opened his fist to reveal a white stone. There were now only seven candidates.

There was a great feast that night and the seven were seated at the head table and waited on in lavish fashion. Dancers and musicians entertained, a tame bear danced for the revelers, and an exotic man with a basket of snakes played a flute and caused the snakes to dance. It was a magical evening. But most important of all was the final lottery. Seven identical puddings were placed on the table before the champions. In one pudding was a pebble. The champions were to eat their pudding and if they got a pebble, they were to keep it in their mouths until the puddings were all gone. No one knew how many pebbles had been baked into the puddings.

When the pudding had been eaten, the seven stood before the townspeople and one at a time were asked to take the pebble from his or her mouth. Gareth was the third in line and the first to spit out a pebble. There were no other pebbles in the puddings. People were amazed that the competition had come to such an abrupt ending and complained that there was supposed to be another round of elimination, but the mayor’s decision was final. Gareth had won the competition. After the brief dispute, celebration and revelry went on all night long.

Gareth sat, enjoying the festival, but contemplating the doom that he had just accepted for himself. He knew that he now had one year to live. He would walk back through the town for the last time and face the ogre. Oh, certainly he would fight. He might even try to run. But doom was inevitable. He would die and be eaten by the vicious beast.

Now among the other finalists were both men and women, and among the women was one who had always been friendly to Gareth. Her name was Cybele and she had dark flashing eyes and a lively temperament. Gareth had been amazed that this young woman had even come to the competition, but unlike him, she was from Lorbridge and was required to join the lottery. While all others who were native to the town had been eliminated early in the competition or in the final seven, by some miracle she had been successful until the last round. She approached Gareth congratulating him on his victory, and asked him to dance with her.

Cybele was seductive and charming and before the night was finished, Gareth was in love. And, Cybele loved Gareth, so it seemed and the two were soon married in a celebration attended by the entire town. They were happy together, for Gareth was given all manner of wealth. They lived in the finest home in the town. They ate the finest foods prepared by the best cooks. Their home was cleaned for them. They had music wherever they went. And Gareth had found the love of his life.

But time marches on and the day of the ogre’s arrival approached. Gareth’s attention began gradually to turn from the delights of his lavish life to preparation for his meeting with the ogre. Having found such great, passionate, and intense love, he was unwilling to part with her. Yet he knew that if he did not face the Bimptwiss, the ogre would rampage through the town that he had also learned to love and would likely destroy his beloved as well.

So Gareth went to all the shops of the town, to all the craftspeople, to all the herbalists and shamans, and asked their advice for fighting the ogre.

“What you need are feathers,” said the butcher. “Ogre’s are dreadfully allergic to feathers.” And with that the butcher took Gareth’s pointed hat and decorated it with feathers so that the ogre’s eyes would tear up and he wouldn’t be able to see Gareth come in for the kill.

“What you need is cunning,” said a wisewoman. “You should be like a snake in the grass, slipping up on the ogre unseen until your venomous bite takes his life.” She wrapped a snakeskin around his hat and chanted that the slippery cunning of the snake would go into the wearer of the hat.

“What you need is a talisman,” said the shaman. “I have been far into the mountains where there is a forge run by smiths of the finest silver, gold, and iron. This talisman has protected me through all my journeys, both in this world and in the spirit world.” And with that, the shaman fastened the talisman to the snakeskin on the hat.

“You need lunch,” said Cybele. “Don’t even think of going out without eating. You can’t be your best unless you have had a healthy meal.” The two were eating the remains of dinner the night before and to humor his darling wife, Gareth took a chicken bone and stuck it through the snakeskin on his hat.

“There,” he said. “Now if I feel in the need for a snack when I see the ogre, I will have one handy.” The two laughed the laughter of lovers and Cybele wept over Gareth.

“I love you,” she said. “You are so brave. You are willing to save our village, even if it means sacrificing your life for us.”

“It is my love for you that gives me the courage to face this fate,” said Gareth. “But do not fear. I have the best protections and will fight the ogre and return victorious.”

Morning came with the earth shaking. People rushed from their homes and created a solemn line from Gareth’s home to the barricade at the town gates. The earth was shaking under the ponderous footsteps of the ogre as it came toward the village.

Gareth kissed his wife and bravely went forth to meet the ogre. Gareth walked through the town and had the impression that people were restraining their mirth. The butcher, when he saw Gareth in his feather covered hat rolled his eyes. The wise woman hid her face when she saw him. Gareth realized that their lore and wisdom were frauds and he was on his own to meet his doom.

Gareth had another weapon that he had told no one about. It seemed insignificant when faced with the prospect of the monstrous ogre, but the hunter in his own village had given him a knife that was sharper than any in the world, having been tempered in the great forges of the underworld. Gareth was confident that if he could get close enough to the ogre, he could twist this knife into its flesh and kill the beast. But this he held privately for himself as his only true hope and told not even his wife about it.

At last Gareth stood before the village with the ogre only steps before him. Then a most remarkable thing happened. The ogre pointed at Gareth’s hat and bellowed, “What that?”

Gareth nimbly jumped up on a rock in front of the monster and called back, “It is protection against ogres. Feathers will make you sneeze. While there are tears in your eyes I will slither like a snake around your ankles. While the talisman keeps me safe from your clumsy swings, I will bite you with the sting of my knife and you will die.”

The ogre laughed.

The stench of his breath filled the valley and the sound of his vile laughter caused all to hold their ears.

“Hungry!” he bellowed through his laughter and reached out to capture Gareth.

“Eat this,” Gareth called back, and reaching to his hat he grabbed the chicken bone and flung it directly into the laughing maw.

The ogre inhaled the bone and it stuck in his throat where it began to choke him. As he clutched his throat, tears began to run from his eyes. Gareth jumped down from his rock and ran behind the beast and clambered up his back. The ogre, still choking and weeping flung himself around, nearly dislodging Gareth from his back. With knife in hand, Gareth reached around the massive head of the ogre and plunged his knife into the ogre’s eye. The ogre’s roar of pain was cut off as Gareth withdrew the knife and drove it into the ogre’s stubby throat.

The battle was over in moments. The ogre fell forward on his face. Gareth grabbed the largest rock he could carry and for good measure smashed the ogre’s head. Then all was silent.

Gareth retrieved his knife, straightened his hat and turned to face the townspeople. “The ogre is dead!” he declared. “The town of Lorbridge is free!” His words were greeted with deafening silence.

Gareth approached the barricade to the town, but the people did not tear it down. They did not cheer for him. They did not welcome him back.

“I want to come home, now,” Gareth said as he approached the barricade. “Let me through.” But the people did not remove the barricade.

“Go home, then,” said the mayor. “There is nothing for you here.”

“But what about my home, my wealth, the things I have accumulated over the past year?” Gareth asked astounded. “I am your hero!”

“One year,” the mayor said. “We promised you everything for a year. The year is over. You have taken everything away from Lorbridge. Our fame was based on the ogre. Our festival was to find a hero for the ogre. Our business and wealth was all based on drawing people from far and wide to the quadrennial festival of the champions. Now we have nothing. Go away.”

Gareth was shocked. He expected to be welcomed back with a hero’s parade. He expected music and dancing and feasting. Instead there was silence.

“Cybele!” he called from the gates. “Cybele, come to me, my wife, and join me in my exile.”

Cybele came to the barricade, but she didn’t cross over. She stood proudly with the people of her town and spoke to Gareth.

“I loved the man who was brave enough to face the ogre,” she said, “not the murderer who killed it.”

“But there is no bravery in being selected by lottery,” Gareth protested. “I am the same today as I was yesterday.”

“Do you really think you were the only one to get a pebble in his pudding? The rest of us swallowed ours. Only you were brave enough—or fool enough—to show yours. Go now. You have had your year of pleasure and have left us with years of suffering. Take your ridiculous hat and leave us.”

And with that the people turned their backs on Gareth and left him to wander the wide world alone.

This hat is the hat of Gareth who slew the ogre.

Chapter 9
Chapter 11

Chapter Nine

2007-11-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

IPPLES OF APPLAUSE SPREAD through the manor house, led by the master himself. The tinker looked at Steven coolly.

“I can see the truth in your story,” lauded the master. “Good Tinker Hamar would have us all believe that dragons are benign and not a serious threat to our villages, our crops, and our families. Your story puts the beast in perspective. They should be hunted down and destroyed.”

“I say the dragons hold no innate malevolence toward humanity,” the tinker clarified. “However, I would also say that they do not brook mockery mildly, nor do they hesitate to defend themselves.”

“I meant no disrespect,” said Steven. “I’m sure the dragon is a noble animal.”

“More so than many nobles you will encounter on the road you have chosen,” the tinker finished. “Good master,” he addressed the lord of the manor, “I thank you once again for your hospitality and trust you have found the story I brought for you to be satisfactory. Steven, your story-debt to me is well-paid.” The tinker seemed much lighter now and Steven ceased fearing he had offended. He, in turn, bade goodnight to the master and followed the tinker back to their camp.

“Are you the real Armand Hamar?” asked Steven excitedly when he caught up to the tinker.

“I am the only one I know by that name, but if you ask for more detail than I have told you about the impossible pot, I must decline to answer. Perhaps it was an ancient ancestor. Certainly you don’t think me so old, do you?”

“Not at all, sir,” Steven replied. “I have enjoyed your company these days and would gladly stay with you and learn more if it were not for my quest.”

“Ah, yes, young dragonslayer. There is always the quest to think of,” Armand responded. “I would, with my advice, give you another gift if I may.”

“I would be a poor guest if I refused the hospitality of my host,” said Steven.

“Well spoken. Be sure you remember that when you find yourself the guest of a dragon,” said the tinker. “Now give me your knife.”

Steven was surprised at the request, but pulled his knife from his belt nonetheless and handed it to the tinker. The tinker rummaged in the back of his wagon and pulled out a whetting stone. He drew Steven’s knife along it slowly, then more quickly. Steven watched in fascination as the man sharpened his knife for him.

But the tinker was not satisfied with merely sharpening the blade. He unwrapped a small leather pouch and withdrew several pointed instruments. By the light of the fire the tinker worked to engrave the blade of the knife as Steven watched silently fascinated.

The tinker handed Steven a hand bellows and had him stoke the coals in the fire as the tinker held the blade in the fire until it turned red, then blue, and then white hot. Much to Steven’s horror, the tinker then removed the knife from the fire and plunged the blade into a pail of cold water.

“My knife!” Steven exclaimed as the steam rose from the bucket. “It will be broken!”

“Never fear,” the tinker said. “I promised you a gift, not to take away your defense.” He pulled the blade from the water and wiped it down with a soft oiled cloth. “Unlike iron, good steel is tempered by the flames and becomes stronger with a plunge into the water.” He held the knife out to Steven. “Steven George, dragonslayer, wear this knife at your belt and display it with as much pride as you do that hat and it will one day save your life.”

Steven accepted the gift and looked at the engraving on the steel. What he took at first for a snake proved to have wings and flame burst from its nose. The bluing that the tinker had wiped on the blade made it glow in the firelight.

Steven had never owned anything so beautiful, nor had he ever thought to.

“I will treasure this always,” Steven said. “Perhaps people will start asking for the story of this wonderful knife instead of my ridiculous hat.”

“You will do yourself a favor to keep telling the story of the hat,” the tinker responded.

Camp was cold and empty when Steven awoke in the morning. There was no sign of the tinker, his cart, or his donkey. The market flags were gone and what people Steven saw were distant even when he was near them. He ate sparingly of the food he had been given for travel at the manor the evening before, shouldered his pack, and started up the long road ahead.

Two hundred sixty-eight thousand seventy-five. Two hundred sixty-eight thousand seventy-six. Steven soon settled into his long one hundred step per minute stride and was amazed that his time with the tinker had allowed him to acclimate to the altitude. He breathed more easily and the rise of the road no longer slowed his stride like it had when he first entered the mountains. He continued to gain height, however, and had gone only two hundred ninety thousand two hundred forty steps when he stopped for the night and huddled by his campfire in the cold mountain air.

The road was broad, but grass and weeds had begun to grow up in the center. Steven met no other travelers coming toward the manor after he had passed the few outlying farms. The world was still and cold. This pattern continued for two more days and Steven found that the air was so cold in the mornings that he could see his breath, and at one curving of the trail he actually saw snow caught in a crevice of the rocks.

But when Steven had traveled three hundred forty-nine thousand one hundred eight steps toward the dragon, his journey was brought to an abrupt halt. The road he had been traveling ended abruptly at a long, wide, clear lake. Steven tested the water with his fingers and immediately decided that entering this lake like he had entered the river with Ranihaha was out of the question. His finger turned blue with the cold of the water in an instant. Puzzled by the sudden turn of events, Steven could not figure out why an apparently well-traveled road would have no travelers on it and end abruptly at a massive body of water. He was ready to camp for the night when he heard a melody whistled off in the bushes to his right.

“Ho there!” Steven called. “Does someone come through the forest?”

“Ho yourself,” called a voice. “Who comes interrupting my melody?” Steven was taken aback. It did not sound like a particularly friendly greeting. He stood firm and strung his bow as he called back.

“It is Steven George, the dragonslayer,” he called back. “If you be man or beast, come show yourself by the water’s edge.” Steven had nocked an arrow and held the bow at the ready looking into the woods. He heard a rustle in the bushes and drew the bow.

“What do you see there?” whispered a voice beneath his elbow. “Is there a dangerous beast?” Steven nearly shot himself in the foot as he lowered the bow and swung to see beside him a very small man leaning on a very large axe.

“What, er… who are you?” Steven sputtered.

“I’m Upik the woodcutter,” the little man answered. “And don’t tell me you thought I was a dragon. My breath is as sweet as clover.”

“I just was surprised,” Steven answered. “And I thought… well, I didn’t know what to think. I haven’t seen anyone in three days and now the road I have traveled ends at this lake and I shall have to go back and find where I turned off the wrong way.”

“Ah, well that would be easy,” said Upik the woodcutter. “You must have taken the high road back at the manor of Master Borgia. It’s an easy mistake to make, but you’ll put it to rights by just going back to the manor and taking the low road out of town.”

“But,” said Steven, “that is eighty-one thousand thirty-four steps. That way,” he added.

“You are one of those, are you?” the woodcutter muttered. “Can only go forward. It’s a hard world if you can’t go back.”

“Yes, it is,” Steven answered. “Is there another way to go? A path around the lake, perhaps?”

“Well, now that you ask,” grumbled the woodcutter, “I suppose Rayna would have my beard if I didn’t take you on. Come with me.” The little man led Steven off the path and on the other side of the bushes Steven saw a small boat anchored just out of sight from the end of the path.

“The water is too cold to pull a raft across,” Steven said.

“I’ve no intention of getting in the water,” the woodcutter said, getting in the boat and laying his axe on the bottom. “Get in.” Steven stepped gingerly into the boat, it rocked and he fell to his knees grasping the gunwales.

“That’s it,” said the woodcutter. “Stay low and hang on.” He dipped his oars into the water and with a powerful pull dislodged the boat from the sandy bottom and they floated out into the lake. The little man’s powerful strokes made the boat glide rapidly to the center of the lake and then past to the other side. Steven frantically counted the strokes, but as with the floating in the river and the thumping of the staff, he soon gave up counting anything that wasn’t one foot in front of the other. He was three hundred forty-nine thousand one hundred twenty-one steps from home across the lake and across the river. He knew exactly where he was.

When the bottom of the boat scraped along the bottom of the opposite shore, Steven was able to jump from the boat and only splash a bit of water on his boots. He helped the woodcutter pull the boat to shore and then followed him to a pleasant little cottage where the woodsmoke from the chimney spoke of warmth and the pleasant smell of cooking promised nourishment. When they entered the cottage, Upik called out. “Rayna, we have company.”

A woman as tall and thin as the woodcutter was short and stocky emerged from behind the fireplace. She was bright and welcoming while Upik continued to grumble and point Steven to a place where he could put his pack down.

“I’ve already set a place,” said Rayna. “Saw you coming across the lake with Upik,” she smiled. I suppose you are hungry aren’t you? We’ve a good stew tonight.”

Steven inhaled deeply of the tantalizing aroma. “It smells wonderful,” he answered. The three sat down to eat and Steven told them why he was on this journey.

“A dragon?” Rayna said. “My my. Upik, there hasn’t been a dragon in these mountains in what? Fifty years? Maybe more. How did you ever come to be up here?”

“Took the high road instead of the low road,” Upik muttered.

“Well, it’s lucky you found us,” said Rayna.

“Why does the path simply end at the lake?” Steven asked. “Is there no path around?”

“Now that’s an interesting story,” said Rayna, anxious to start in at once.

“Just a moment,” Upik interrupted. “How do we know this dragonslayer has any stories worth trading? He doesn’t seem to know much.”

“Oh, I’d be happy to trade stories,” said Steven. “I’ve many very good stories.”

“Well, suppose you tell us the story of that fine feathered hat you wear,” suggested Rayna. “I’d certainly like to know that story.” In a few moments they had agreed to swap stories and Rayna was ready to tell her story to Steven.

The Underwater Well

NCE UPON A TIME, not so very long ago for those with a good memory, and not so very far away for those who have strong legs to carry them, there lived kind Prince Florian who ruled this land with care and the people prospered under his rule. But people do not live forever, and in due course, kind Prince Florien and his wife passed to the grave and their foolish son, Prince Gavril came to power.

As kind as Prince Florien had been, Prince Gavrel was cruel. Where Prince Florien had been generous, Prince Gavrel was greedy. The people of the land suffered under the burden of his taxes and even the crops in the fields seemed to wither.

Not only was Prince Gavril greedy, he was also foolish. Whenever he heard of a treasure to be had, he sent an army to fetch it for him. If a neighboring prince prospered, Gavrel made war against him. Soon the tiny principality was surrounded by enemies. These enemies met in secret conference together to determine what to do about the wicked prince. They had no desire to waste their people in war, so they kept their prosperity secret. But the threat still loomed over them and they devised a clever plan.

One day a stranger traveled to Prince Gavril’s castle. The stranger was neither young nor old, rich nor poor. He asked a simple traveler’s comfort at the castle. At first Prince Gavril was ready to turn him away, for he was not a hospitable prince. But the stranger said, “Perhaps the prince would be interested in this small token of gratitude that I bring from my people.” With that, the stranger presented a golden goblet to the prince.

Prince Gavril was awed by the workmanship of the goblet. He had never seen such a thing of beauty in his life. But more importantly, he was impressed by the value of the gold from which it was made. He had already made plans to melt it down and make new coins with his own picture on them as he invited the stranger in.

Thinking himself very clever indeed, Prince Gavril set a great feast for the stranger and plied him with wine late into the night; for Prince Gavril was certain that where one such fine piece of gold came from there would certainly be more. He asked the stranger his name and where he came from.

“I am Wullion of the Skulhellitans,” said the stranger. “My people share this same land with you, noble prince. But while you walk on its surface, we walk in its depths.” At these words, the prince was incensed. How dare another people share his land and not pay him taxes? But keeping his anger to himself, Prince Gavril plied Wullion with more wine and questions about his land. Wullion held up a dinner plate before the prince.

“Suppose this is the Principality of Gavril,” began Wullion with a suppressed belch, “begging Your Highness’s pardon. Now on this side of the plate is where your castle is built. Your people plant and harvest all around you. There are mountains and rivers. But on the other side of the plate is the Kingdom of Skulhellita. We, too, have a castle with a ruler; but where you have rivers that run with water, our rivers run with gold. Where your people plant crops of wheat and corn, our people plant crops of diamonds and rubies.”

“I should like to pay my respects to your king,” Prince Gavril said. “How might I journey to your amazing land?”

“Ah,” said Wullion, “did not your father, Prince Florian, tell you this secret? We wondered why we had not had the grace of your presence in our kingdom in all these years since your father died.”

Now Prince Gavril was truly upset that his father had never told him about the wealthy kingdom that lay beneath the soil of his own. No wonder his father had rich crops in the fields and food on the table, while the crops in Gavril’s principality withered in the fields. His father had always had access to the wealth of Skulhellita!

“The crossing is made between our lands at only two seasons of the year,” Wullion continued his story. “At the time of the last harvest of autumn before the frost has taken the ground and at the last planting of spring when the crops first begin to sprout, the gates between our worlds become thin and it is easy to pass between them. I myself have journeyed on this side of the plate,” Wullion said, pointing to the top, “since the planting in the spring, and now I am preparing to return as the frost is nipping lower in the hills.”

“I would return with you,” Prince Gavril said. “To pay my respects,” he hastily added. “Where is this gate?”

“Why the gate is right here in the castle!” exclaimed Wullion, amazed at Gavril’s lack of knowledge. “The passage is in the main well, and the gate is open early in the morning.”

Gavril was ecstatic at this information. He bade his guest goodnight and gave him the best room in the castle. Then he went to prepare his soldiers for an attack on the underground kingdom in the morning. He worked furiously all night preparing the troops and at the first light of dawn he rapped lightly on Wullion’s door to awaken him for the journey.

There was no answer.

Prince Gavril opened the door and to his surprise found the room unused, the bed unslept in. Wullion had gone without him.

Gavril went instantly into war mode and sent his first troops down the well. They reported back that they found no gateway to another kingdom. Gavril himself went down the well and found now gateway. But he was determined to find the underground kingdom, so he ordered his troops to start digging around the well.

The troops dug a hole around the well, and then under Gavril’s scourge enlarged the hole to include the well. He sent more and more soldiers into the hole, making it larger and larger until the hole covered the entire courtyard and dirt, thrown over the walls was piled as high as the castle gates. But still, Gavril found no gate to the underworld. He went to bed that night seething at how his opportunity had escaped.

When the Prince and his army awoke in the morning, they found that the hole they had dug was full of water. The prince ordered the hole to be filled in, but the dirt from the hole had been thrown over the walls. When he sent the soldiers out of the castle to get the dirt, they found the castle gates blocked by the piles they had so carelessly discarded. They were sealed into the castle by their own engineering.

And still the water rose.

Gavril moved to the second floor of his palace, but in the morning, the water covered the floor in his bedchamber. He moved to the top tower of the castle and locked the doors so that the soldiers could not join him in the tiny chamber. And still the water rose.

The soldiers seeing that their prince had abandoned them, in their turn abandoned the prince and jumped from the castle walls onto the piles of dirt. Those who survived decided not to remove the dirt from in front of the castle gates, but rather to flee the principality and its foolish prince. The people of the principality, seeing the soldiers flee, followed them and soon only the prince was left in his high tower surrounded by water.

And still the water rose.

The surrounding rulers accepted the fleeing soldiers and peasants into their lands and provided for them. But they sealed the Principality of Gavril in its valley. After many months, those traveling the road to Gavril found they were blocked by an immense lake and could see no trace of the castle that had been the last home of the last prince in the valley.

That lake is the lake you have crossed this day.

Chapter 8
Chapter 10

Chapter Eight

2007-11-08T08:30:00.001-08:00

ERHAPS, STEVEN THOUGHT, HE SHOULD have paid the tinker for his story with one of his own and set off at a more brisk pace to put steps behind him; but the tinker was such good company and Steven had so many questions that it was difficult to part. Steven spent the entire walk the next day asking for more details. While others he had met confessed to have heard of a dragon, the tinker was the first who actually knew a story about one and may have even seen the impossible pot at some point in his life.

“What color was the dragon in your story,” Steven asked.

“Well, mostly green,” answered the tinker. “Didn’t I mention green? Although she was encrusted with jewels from lying on her hoard. You knew dragons had a hoard, didn’t you? They collect treasure all their lives. The man who masters a dragon is a wealthy man indeed.”

“Did this dragon change to a damsel only at night, or could it happen at any time of day?” Steven continued to probe.

“The dragon was more inclined to human form when in human company and kept her dragon form as her natural state. Armand loved the lady and feared the dragon. So, naturally the creature stayed a lady most of the time they were together,” the tinker answered.

“What happened after the seven years?” Steven asked next. “Did Armand Hamar stay with the dragonlady or go back to being a tinker?”

“Now that is a puzzle to most people,” said the tinker. “Some have said they see him wandering the roads to this day. Others that it is a seven year with and seven year without kind of romance and he goes back to her after he has wandered seven years away. But the stories all seem to agree that his time with the dragon gave Armand an exceptionally long lifespan. Some say he even turned to a dragon himself.”

“Do you mean you could become a dragon?” Steven asked, astonished. This thought had never crossed his mind. Perhaps his dragon had once been someone else. Perhaps even the missionary who had come to his village eons ago.

The tinker simply nodded and said, “Some say.”

Before Steven realized it, the bulk of the day had passed and there ahead of them lay a sizeable mountain village. Banners streamed in the afternoon sun from the town’s main street, for as they drew nearer, Steven could see that this was no one-road town, but that more buildings than he had ever seen leaned into each other along twisting cartpaths through the town. Steven was in awe.

“I’ve never seen so many people. This must be what is meant by a city,” he told the tinker, keeping close to the cart.

“Not so large as a real city,” the tinker said. “But this is the main trading center for many days journey around. I’ll set up shop in the market and do a sharp business tonight and tomorrow. I’m afraid I’ll have to wait to hear your story until tomorrow night.”

At this Steven chafed a bit, but a deal was a deal, and just because he could not tell his story around the fire tonight, he still owed the story to the tinker and was bound to pay him. It was only fair. He helped the tinker open his cart for the customers who already had lined up with broken pots, furniture, and even a dog with three legs and a wheel. Steven soon found that the tinker had made the extraordinary contraption for the dog who got around almost as well as a normal dog as a result.

Steven also found that some of the buildings were shops where goods were bought and sold. Having never seen or used coins before, Steven was at a loss for how he could trade for food or supplies. The tinker came to Steven’s rescue, buying each of them a meat pie from a vendor and a tankard of ale from another. Steven was reluctant to be any further in the tinker’s debt, but the tinker seemed to think that Steven was performing a useful service by keeping people in an orderly line as they brought their things to be mended, or sought to buy a new pot or have a talk with the tinker about mending a roof.

The two worked well into the evening around the tinker’s fire and Steven proved himself worthy by mending a cane chair himself. He discovered that many of the tasks the tinker performed for others in town were things that people in his village had to do for themselves. When they were too tired to go on, the slept with the donkey, leaning up against the cart.

They were awake before dawn, now working side-by-side. Steven went off to mend a thatched roof for the tinker and returned with coins that the tinker said were his for his labor. Steven was remarkably proud of the coins and placed them in the same pouch with his precious herbs where they jingled merrily when he walked. Late the second day, as they were cleaning up the remains of the work they had to do, a man dressed in fine clothes came up to the tinker.

“The master asks you and your assistant to join him at the manor for the evening meal,” said the man.

“Ah,” said the tinker. “And what might the master want with a poor tinker?” This was said with a slight lilt and Steven caught a devilish wink from the tinker.

“Naught but your company, and perhaps a story,” said the man. There will be clean straw for your bed and a hot meal in return.

“Tell the master that his humble servant will attend him after the sun has set,” answered the tinker. The man was satisfied and went off with his message. The tinker turned to Steven and said, “It seems the story you are to tell me must be shared with others tonight. I do hope it is a good one!”

Dinner at the manor was the most elaborate meal Steven had ever witnessed. There was as much food as at any village feast, and in addition to the master, a number of other townspeople had been invited. The tinker introduced Steven George the Dragonslayer to the master and Steven was seated at the table next to the tinker.

“That is a spectacular hat you are wearing,” said the master to Steven. “I dare say we have never seen anything like it in this part of the mountains.” Several young women who had heard the comment hid their faces, but Steven could hear their laughter.

“It is a badge of honor to wear this hat,” said Steven. “Many there are who would have it, but it is the only one of its kind in the known world.” Steven spoke as though he knew all the known world rather than just the two hundred sixty-eight thousand seventy-four steps he had journeyed from his home.

“Perhaps,” said the tinker, “if it pleases the master, you will take my place to pay for our meal and beds with the story of that remarkable hat.”

“Yes, yes,” said the master. “If it is as unique as you say, it will be a story well worth the meal.”

“This story has been passed down for generations along with the hat,” Steven improvised as he stood to address the assembled dinner guests.

The Humble Haberdasher

NCE UPON A TIME, many steps ago, there lived a humble haberdasher named Kasimar Cu Caciula, known to all his customers as Kaz-In-A-Hat. The place where he lived was very hot in the summer, so people came to Kaz from far away to get the light summer hats that he made from straw to shield them from the sun. The place where he lived was also very cold in the winter, so people came to Kaz from far away to get the warm winter hats with earflaps that he made from Sheep’s skin to warm them in the cold. Kaz made beautiful hats and hats that were not so beautiful, but all his hats were warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

One day as Kaz sat at his haberdasher bench molding a particularly fine sheepskin hat, he spied a rat creeping along the wall looking for scraps his family might have dropped. Kaz threw a wooden hatblock at the rat. The rat neatly sidestepped the block and continued calmly to investigate a site it seemed particularly interested in.

Kaz threw a rabbit pelt at the rat, but the rat again neatly stepped aside and continued foraging. Looking for another projectile, Kaz pulled the not-yet-finished hat from the table and flung it at the rat. Because of its unique shape, the hat floated gently through the air and settled cozily over the surprised rat.

Now the rat was alarmed. It scurried left and right bumping into table leg and chair. But since it could not see outside the hat, it could not tell that its doom approached on the feet of Kaz-In-A-Hat. Kaz followed the hat around the room with the rat’s tail protruding from one edge. As the rat ran into a blank wall and was for a moment dazed, Kaz snatched it up by the tail, removed it from the shop and drowned it in a pail of water.

Satisfied that his home and shop were once again safe from infestation, Kaz recovered the hat and proceeded to finish it. As he worked, he absent-mindedly hummed a little ditty to himself that he made up as he went along.

“With this hat

I killed a rat.

Through the air it lightly flew

If there’d been another, I’d killed two.

And if another had come to see,

With this hat, I’d killed three.

You ask if I could handle four,

I say to you, bring more, bring more!”

Kaz was incredibly pleased with himself, both for having been clever enough to catch the rat and for the ditty he had made up celebrating the fact. But little did Kaz know that his youngest child had wandered by as he sang his song. The child, always in awe of his father and his splendid hats, continued to his playmates and—as children are prone to do—proceeded at once to brag about his father’s accomplishments.

“My Papa,” said the little one, “has made a magic hat that catches rats.” The child’s playmates were suitably awed. They went to their homes and told their parents about the magic hat that could hunt by itself.

The parents spoke to other parents and soon the whole city was abuzz with the news that Kaz-In-A-Hat had made a hat that could feed them all during the winter. A soldier overheard two peasants talking about the miraculous hat that could protect a village from bandits. He went to the king to tell the king of a hatmaker who had made a weapon that could defeat all their enemies.

The king was deaf to the stories the soldier told for his only daughter had been recently kidnapped and was being held by a fearsome dragon high in the mountains. He could not send an army to rescue her because the paths were so narrow in the mountains that they could be ambushed and destroyed. His magicians had professed ignorance of dragon magic. He could only think that he must offer a great reward to get a hero to go rescue his daughter.

Then what the soldier had said sank in. Perhaps he had a hero in his kingdom.

“Go to this hat-maker,” said the king. “Summon him to my presence and let us see if his magic is a match for the dragon.”

When Kaz went to his shop the next morning, he found the doorway crowded with people who wanted him to make one of his magical hats for them. They crowded into the small shop and Kaz was overwhelmed with the number of requests that were made. At last, a soldier shouldered his way through the door and demanded that everyone leave; the king had need of Kaz-In-A-Hat. Kaz was told to bring his magical hat with him and appear before the king.

Kaz snatched up the hat he had dubbed Ratcatcher and followed the soldier to the castle. He thought perhaps the king had an infestation of rats and had heard that Kaz could catch them. But when he knelt before the king and heard the actual command, he quailed.

How was he to defeat a dragon and rescue the princess. And why? He certainly didn’t need a princess to marry as he was happily married with a family. He didn’t need a king’s ransom because he had a business and many customers. And he certainly didn’t need the squadron of soldiers sent to accompany him up the mountain to the place where the path narrowed and there was no way to go but forward. Here the army halted and Kaz was sent on his way alone.

The way twisted and turned and Kaz was certain he was lost except there had been no branching in the path and no place he could step off it. At long last he began to see signs of a mighty beast. The tops and then the trunks of some of the trees were scorched. Other trees had simply been broken off like a matchstick. The foul breath of the dragon permeated everything that was around Kaz and at last he had pity on the princess who must be suffering with the awful smell.

Then Kaz saw the dragon. It was a fearful beast with a spiked tail and three horns growing from its head. Its wings were feathered in leather and his skin was encrusted with jewels. Razor-sharp claws protruded from its limbs and Kaz was certain that he had met his death. Clutched beneath one wing like a new prized treasure was the princess who shook beneath the dragon’s paw, tears pouring from her eyes.

“Save me!” cried the princess. This had the effect of alerting the dragon to Kasimar’s presence. The dragon swiveled its head in his direction and began at once to take the breath that would roast the haberdasher where he stood.

Kaz had only the weapon of his hat and reacted instantly with the same accurate throw he had used on the ill-fated rat. His hat sailed through the air distracting the dragon for a moment. In that instant, the hat settled on the dragon’s nose.

The dragon belched forth fire, but it was a vain attempt, for the hat held and the fire was forced back into the dragon’s lungs. The dragon’s fire was quenched and as it struggled to dislodge the hat from its face, Kaz rushed forward, drew his sewing shears, and thrust them into the dragon’s heart. The dragon faltered, looked at Kaz out of one mournful eye and fell dead at his feet. Kaz immediately used his trusty scissors to snip a whole in the wing that the princess was able to crawl out of. She took one look at the fallen dragon and at Kaz and ran crying from the clearing down the mountain path in the direction from which Kaz had come.

For his part, Kaz attempted to retrieve his smoking hat from the dragon’s face. When it was dislodged, the inside had been charred. Dragon feathers clung to the fur outside the hat. Kaz proceeded to pluck more of the dragon’s feathers and decorate his amazing hat, then cut a strip of the leathery hide to wrap around the brim. He took a talisman from the dragon’s gem encrusted belly and fastened the skin in place. Then using his scissors, as sharp as a razor, he cut a finger-bone from the dragon’s claws and fastened it to the side of the hat.

Kaz made his own way down off the mountain and when he returned to the castle he discovered that the army had escorted the princess home. The captain who had blocked Kasimar’s retreat had been praised for delivering the princess and she had already agreed to marry him. Her father gave them a king’s ransom as a dowry. No one seemed even to recognize Kaz, and so he simply left and went home.

Kaz continued his simple life and lived to a great age, but never again was he called upon to make a magic hat or to rescue a captured princess. But Ratcatcher the amazing hat was passed down through the ages with the story of the haberdasher who slew a dragon and sits on this head before you now.

Chapter 7
Chapter 9

Chapter Seven

2007-11-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

SMALL MOUNTAIN OF A MAN towered over Steven as he shook his head to clear the continued ringing in his ears. His hat shook wildly back and forth with each movement and Steven put both hands on it to steady his head. In one hamfisted hand, the tinker held a frying pan.

“Well?” demanded the tinker. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Steven pointed a shaky finger at the tinker’s cart and donkey now coming into focus.

“I thought it was a dragon,” he said feebly. For a moment the man stared at him in incomprehension, then he chuckled, and then he let out a huge guffaw that echoed off the side of the mountain. He tossed the pan into the back of his wagon and reached down to offer Steven a hand up. When Steven finally stood, the tinker looked him up and down.

“Now aren’t you the sorriest excuse for a dragonslayer that ever wandered the mountains,” he laughed. “Come sit by the fire and warm yourself, man. Let me see if I can guess the story.” Steven sat on a rock opposite the tinker and accepted a warm cup of soup from the man’s fire.

“Thank you,” said Steven. “I’m awfully sorry to have disturbed you, but I’m Steven George the dragonslayer and I am trying to find the dragon that threatens our village to put an end to our fears.”

“Don’t, don’t tell me,” the tinker said. “Let me guess. There is a fair maiden from your village who is missing and no one thought to check in the next village where her lover lives? No? I have it. A mysterious fire burned a field of crops and threatened the home of a particularly foul old man who lives outside the village? No? Cattle or sheep were mysteriously slain and the carcass was found amid a charred circle? Ah! I got it! And you were elected to go out and fight the dragon, even though neither you nor anyone else in your village has ever actually seen a dragon.”

“Well, sort of,” Steven admitted.

“How did you get to be as old as you are and still be so naïve?” the tinker laughed. “Boy, you’ve been blindfolded, spun in a circle, and pointed the wrong direction!”

“I don’t understand,” said Steven. “I’ve always known I was the dragonslayer.”

“Think, did you own a piece of property that others wanted? Did you have a particularly beautiful wife? Did you offend a village elder?” asked the tinker all at one time.

“No. It’s not like that,” said Steven. “I was raised to be a dragonslayer from birth. My village always knew the time would come that we might need one because of the prophecy. When the sheep was killed, we knew that now was the time.”

“I see,” said the tinker. “This prophecy, has it been around long?”

“Yes. For ever so long,” Steven answered.

“And how many dragonslayers have there been before you?”

“None. I was chosen at birth for the task and raised by the village to do it.”

“Really?” asked the tinker. “And how exactly did the village know that it was time to raise a dragonslayer? Were there attacks previously?”

“I don’t think so,” Steven thought it out carefully. “I think the village just decided now was the time.”

“Let me tell you, Steven George the Dragonslayer,” said the tinker, “villages don’t just up and decide things. Someone in the village had to suggest the idea, and that someone had a reason to need a dragonslayer. It had nothing to do with the supposed slaughter of a sheep. Think who could have planned this for, what? Thirty years? And then you will know why you were sent out on this ridiculous chase.”

“Are you saying that there is no such thing as a dragon?” gasped Steven.

“Heavens no, man! I’d never suggest that. I knew a man once who…” The tinker broke off abruptly and considered the situation. “Well, now. Let me see. Here you are, miles from home and I’m about to just up and give you a perfectly good story. There ought to be something to trade for that.”

“I can tell a story, too,” Steven jumped in excitedly. “I know many good stories. Perhaps you’d like to know about my hat,” he said proudly.

“Hmmm,” answered the tinker. “Is it a good story?”

“Oh, very good,” Steven declared, searching his mind for a good story he could use to tell about his hat. He was sure he could come up with something before it was his turn to tell a story.

“It is an interesting hat,” the tinker mused. “I’ll make that trade. I’ll tell you the story of The Impossible Pot if you’ll tell me about your hat.”

“It’s a deal,” Steven said yawning.

“Tomorrow,” said the tinker. “You are about to go to sleep tonight. You must have come far.”

“Two hundred twenty-eight thousand eight hundred seventy-three steps,” Steven recited as he prepared his bedroll by the fire. Then he added, “That way,” pointing back down the road he had come by.

“You don’t say,” said the tinker, genuinely amazed. “I didn’t know the world went on so far. Well, there are a good many more steps ahead of you than behind,” he chuckled. Then pointed up the road they were headed and added, “this way.”

EXT MORNING THE TWO travelers set out together talking of the road and the adventures that could be found on it. The tinker questioned Steven about his village and said that he had never found a way to cross the river that far downstream with his wagon, so had never journeyed so far as Steven’s village. But when Steven mentioned the town of Lastford, the tinker knew all about that and the melon festival. He had been there many times.

They passed the journey more leisurely than Steven had been walking of late, but the company was so good and the prospect of a story that included a dragon so compelling that Steven did not mind the slower pace as the donkey toiled up the mountain. They stopped in the mid-afternoon to make camp so the poor animal could rest. Steven proved his skills of survival by trapping a squirrel and preparing it on a spit for dinner. The tinker prepared a pot of vegetables on the fire as well and Steven sprinkled a pinch of the wisewoman’s herbs over all. It was a fine feast for the two men as they sat in the gathering evening. At last, the tinker belched loudly, stretched his hands so that all his knuckles cracked at set out to tell his story.

The Unmendable Pot

NCE UPON A TIME a long time ago and very far away, there traveled the roads a famous tinker named Armand Hamar. He was skilled like no other tinker that ever lived. If there was a pot that was broken, a roof to mend, or a ditch to dig, Armand Hamar could fix it, mend it, or dig it. It was said once that when the Queen of Arabie had broken her favorite mirror, she sent away for Armand Håmar and refused to see anyone until he had mended her mirror and she could see herself first. So good was his repair that no seam showed where he sealed the mirror together.

When the Prince Lukas Leonard Hector Quentin von Melicia was to be married to Lady Hyacinthe Annabelle Arianna of Sendebois he called upon Armand Hamar to create the most marvelous wedding gift the world had ever known. He entrusted the project to Armand with the words that it was to be useful, beautiful, and one-of-a-kind, promising to pay a fortune for the right gift.

Armand Hamar considered this for a long time trying to decide what a simple tinker could make that was not only useful, but beautiful and one-of-a-kind. Fortunately he had been given a year’s notice for the creation as the wedding day had been set for the following Midsummer Eve.

Now it was a well-known fact that Lady Hyacinthe was a terrible cook. Prince Lukas had been sick for two days after his first dinner with her, but she had other charms and the prince was willing to overlook the culinary deficiencies of his bride-to-be.

Armand was clever and thought it would be a wonderful thing if the newlyweds had a new kettle. This would certainly be useful. Even the worst cook needed a kettle to cook in. But how would he make a common kettle beautiful and unique?

It happened that Armand was a sand-scratcher. You’ve undoubtedly seen the type. When they are thinking, and even when they are talking, they are constantly scratching pictures in the sand with a stick, with their finger, or if they particularly don’t want to be noticed, even with their toe. And while Armand puzzled over his dream pot he scratched out pictures with a stick, then scrubbed them out with his foot and scratched again. As he lost himself in thought, he suddenly looked at the pictures he had scratched in the sand an answer came to him.

He could make a pot that was beautiful. Rather than being a simple black kettle, he would scratch pictures in the metal. He experiemented with various rocks and other metals and finally came up with a combination that would cut into the iron of the pot and leave a shining silver scratch deep enough that it would not polish out with the first scrubbing that it got. And thus it was that Armand Hamar invented the art of engraving. But what would he engrave on the pot that would be unique and beautiful?

That is where serendipity came to play; for as Armand traveled the lesser mountains of the east, he witnessed a most amazing sight. Armand Hamar saw a dragon. In that day and age dragons were more common than they are now, not having been so widely hunted, but none-the-less to see one and to live to tell of it was a rare occurrence indeed. Armand saw the sparkling creature flying far overhead, leaving a trail of smoke in the sky behind it. He marked the direction it had gone and set out to find the dragon.

Now Armand had no plan to kill the dragon, nor to harm it in any way; but he thought that if he could get close enough to capture the image in his mind he would be able to engrave the image on the wedding kettle. So he journeyed many days into the heart of the mountains where occasionally he would catch a glimpse of the creature or see its trail in the sky.

At long last, Armand found the hidden lair of the great dragon. He could smell the sulphurous reek of the smoke mixed with the cooking smell of some animal that had been freshly killed and roasted with the dragon’s fiery breath. Armand took the blank kettle on which he intended to engrave the image and crept closer to the lair.

The sight he saw nearly stopped his heart, for he saw not the aerial serpent that he had seen overhead, but instead a beautiful maiden tending a cooking spit. The smell of the roasting meat soon overwhelmed the smell of sulphur and Armand found himself drawn closer and closer to the maiden. She was dressed in a jeweled gown that sparkled in the firelight much like the sparkle of the dragon he had seen in the sky. Enticed by the cooking and the beautiful woman, Armand crept closer still.

It was inevitable that he would be noticed sooner or later, and sooner it was. The maiden looked directly at him with a piercing eye and demanded to know what he was doing spying on her.

“Fair lady,” Armand said, “I thought I had tracked a fearsome beast to this lair and had no intention of spying on a worshipful lady as yourself.”

“And you came to slay this beast?” demanded the damsel.

“Oh no!” declared Armand. “I came to capture its image to turn this poor kettle into a work of art. I saw only the beauty of the creature and had no desire to harm it.”

“What?” sneered the lady. “Not even to rescue a damsel in distress?” This stopped Armand short and he had to consider how he answered her. He had no desire to offend the lady, but was both a peaceful man and a bit of a coward.

“Were I to find a lady in distress, fair maiden, I would do my best to server her needs,” Armand said, “for it would be unkind of me to ignore her. But here I find a damsel who seems to need no saving, and were I to have my choice, I would abandon my desire to engrave the dragon on my poor kettle and engrave her image alone.”

“Do you think I am lovely, then?” she asked.

“Lady, you are the fairest that the world has ever seen. You are the twinkling starlight. You are a burst of flowers and the song of a lark.”

“You are laying it on a bit thickly,” she smiled at him, “but I accept your compliment. Come and dine with me.”

And so Armand Hamar joined the lady at her table set with golden plates and ate of the succulent roast she had prepared. They chatted companionably through the meal and each found the other to be enjoyable company. The lady had long lived alone in the mountains, disdaining the company of men, but found herself occasionally lonely. Armand commiserated saying that his life on the road as a tinker had also left him without companionship. After the meal had ended and they talked far into the night, the maiden seated herself on a rock overlooking a calm and sparkling pool.

“You would engrave an image on your kettle,” she said. “I shall sit here and we will chat while you work.” Armand was thrilled and began at once to sketch with his tools on the black iron pot. He worked the metal with a skill that surpassed that of any craftsman known in the world. The glittering image of the lady of the mountains (as he had begun to think of her) took shape on the kettle, sparkling in the slivers of metal that he worked loose from the kettle. All night he worked and when dawn had streaked the eastern sky with light he knelt before the maiden and offered her the newly engraved pot.

She was delighted with the image and wanted it for her own. Armand explained that he had journeyed so far to capture the image for a wedding gift for the prince and his bride. This did not please the woman and she began to seethe. Armand thought that he had begun gradually to smell sulphur again. But he knew he could not deny this lady anything that she asked of him.

“Lady, this poor piece of workmanship is unworthy of you, but if you would have it, I would gladly give it to you. Indeed, I have failed my task,” he told her.

“Failed?” asked the lady. “How failed?”

“I have failed in that my commission was to create a gift that was useful, beautiful, and unique in all the world,” he explained. “While a kettle is useful, and the engraving is beautiful, I fear that as soon as it is seen it will be copied by every weekend artist in every village of the kingdom. Little kettles with engraved women on them will be sold at stalls in markets by talentless people who can only copy and sell. It will cease to be unique.” Armand was saddened to know that he spoke the truth in this, for such was the time in which he lived.

The maiden was moved by this story, and indeed by Armand Hamar himself. She considered his plight for some time and then offered him a trade.

“I have found you desirable and wish your company more frequently,” she said. “I shall propose a trade.”

“But command me, my lady, and I will obey,” said Armand, so besotted was he of the woman by now.

“You have consented to give me this pot. I will give it back to you and make it unique in a way that cannot be copied, if you will agree to spend seven years in my company,” she said.

Armand considered this for the heart-beat of a hummingbird and replied, “Only seven years, lady? For your companionship alone I would spend seven times that with you.”

“Careful what you pledge, Tinker,” she winked at him. “You may find seven years to be more than you can stand!”

Nonetheless, the two agreed to the lady’s terms. She would make the kettle unique and Armand would stay with her for seven years.

What happened next, the poor tinker could not have imagined had he lived twice his years. The lady took the heavy kettle in her hands as though it were a feather and threw it into the air. Armand watched the kettle fly to an impossible height, his eye fixed on the black pot against the morning sky. In a flash the dragon he had seen before was chasing the pot across the sky with flames shooting from its nostrils encasing the pot in fire. The sheer pressure of the inferno bursting from the dragon’s breath kept the pot afloat for an impossible time, and then both dragon and kettle settled softly to the ground in front of the tinker.

As he watched the fiery dragon shifted back to the visage of the fair maiden. Armand Hamar was speechless, but the image of the maiden turned dragon turned maiden again was second to the miraculous pot that now sat before him. The image of the lady he had so carefully engraved glowed against the black iron of the pot. As he turned it in different directions he could see the image of a dragon take shape behind her, and then fade again. This, indeed would be difficult for any weekend craftsman to copy.

Armand Hamar was not seen again in the valleys and villages of men for seven years, and only seldom thereafter. But on the wedding day of Prince Lukas Leonard Hector Quentin von Melicia and Lady Hyacinthe Annabelle Arianna of Sendebois, a parcel arrived which they opened with their wedding gifts. Inside was the most beautifully engraved kettle the kingdom had ever seen. The image of a woman seated on a rock that was engraved on it, subtly shifted to the image of a dragon. But that was not the most remarkable thing about the pot.

This pot required no fire to cook its food. Anything placed in the pot was cooked to perfection without fire. Lady Hyacinthe never again served inedible meals for the pot carried the heat of the dragon’s breath and the culinary skills of the maiden. In all the ages before or since, there has never been seen another like it.

Steven was enrapt. He had a thousand questions for the tinker, but top on his mind was that there was, somewhere, a picture of a dragon that he could look at and see what he was to fight.

“What happened to the impossible pot?” he asked the tinker. “Is it still at the castle?”

“Oh no, no,” said the tinker. “Even the most remarkable things are considered common to people who are not steeped in their stories. Some years later, a scullery maid, thinking she was cleaning up properly, plunged the pot into a tub of cold water.”

“What happened then?” Steven asked. The tinker pointed at the small frying pan they had cooked bacon and eggs in for their dinner. He had turned the pan over on the flames to burn the residue of dinner out of it. The pan glowed on the flames. The tinker wrapped a leather strip around his hand and took hold of the pan by its handle. Without warning he plunged it into a bucket of water Steven had fetched earlier to give to the donkey.

There was an earsplitting crack as steam rose from the instantly boiling water. The tinker withdrew his hand and Steven saw that it held only half a pan.

“Cold water and hot iron don’t mix,” the tinker said solemnly. Steven could only imagine the world’s loss as he drifted off to sleep that night.

Chapter 6
Chapter 8

Chapter Six

2007-11-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Y THE FIRST LIGHT OF DAWN, Steven was up with his bedroll packed and his staff in his hand. Jasper arose sleepily and slowly.

“Do we have to leave already?” he said plaintively. “It’s hardly morning.”

“You don’t have to leave, my friend,” said Steven, “but I want to be on the road and searching for the dragon.”

“Can you wait while I get ready?” Jasper asked. Reluctantly, Steven agreed, but couldn’t help pacing back and forth in impatience. One hundred one thousand three hundred twenty. One hundred one thousand three hundred twenty-one. One hundred one thousand three hundred twenty-two. Steven had been gone over one hundred thirty-three steps before Jasper picked up a small parcel and slung it over his shoulder.

“Is that all?” Steven asked, in disbelief.

“I don’t have much,” said Jasper. “I’ve never really needed anything that people didn’t just give me.”

Steven shrugged and the two headed out of Lastford on the main road. The skies were gray and there was a hint of moisture in the air. Steven was glad for the warm wool of his walking shirt as he picked up his pace to the comfortable one hundred steps per minute that meant he was on a smooth and secure path.

Jasper lagged behind and then jogged to catch up. He talked to Steven at a rapid pace for several minutes, then gradually fell behind again. Jogging to catch up again, he asked breathlessly, “Why do you walk so fast? I can hardly keep up. Can’t you slow down a little?”

To Steven, the pace was not anything like the one hundred twenty steps per minute that he considered a hard walk. Nonetheless, he tried to moderate his pace to match Jasper, but kept gradually drawing ahead and Jasper would jog to catch up and complain that Steven was walking too fast.

Jasper spent most of the time talking as fast as they were walking, asking questions but seldom waiting for an answer. But one question he asked set Steven thinking, and lost in thought he was a great deal ahead of Jasper when the boy ran to catch up again.

“How are you going to kill the dragon?” Jasper had asked.

Now that was a good question. In fact, it was a question he had asked himself and others many times. The hunter had taught him to set traps and to shoot the bow and arrow when he was still a youngster. Since then he had assumed that he would have to make a bow and arrow of his own and that he would shoot the dragon in one of the two vital spots the hunter had described for most animals: the neck just behind the back of the skull, or the heart. But he had asked many people over the years how they thought he would kill the dragon.

“Mother, mother,” he had pestered her when he was still tagging along at her heels. “How will I kill the dragon?”

“Well,” she had said, “you will be clever surprise it.”

“But how will I kill it?”

“Well, perhaps you will stab it?” The young Steven considered this for a moment.

“But I’m too little to have a knife. You said,” he complained. “How can I kill it without a knife?”

“Well, you aren’t too little to hit it with a stone,” she had replied.

“But what if it is really, really big?” His exasperated mother was at her wit’s end trying to answer the question.

“Steven, I don’t know how you will kill the dragon,” she had said in irritation. “I don’t even know what a dragon looks like. Perhaps you are a kind of poisonous animal and when the dragon eats you he will die of a stomachache.”

That had served to silence Steven as he considered for the first time that slaying the dragon might not mean that he would return home victorious. His mission in life might, in fact, cost him his own.

Now, as he walked with or in front of Jasper, tuning out the boy’s chatter and complaining, he focused on counting his steps and thinking about how to kill the dragon. One hundred nine thousand six hundred eighty-two. On hundred nine thousand six hundred eighty three.

He has studied herbology with the wisewoman. He had studied magic rituals with the shaman. He had studied hunting with the hunter. He had even studied story-telling with the teacher and politics with the elder. He had many skills, but still had no real understanding of what a dragon was and how it should be speedily dispatched. He imagined it to be a winged serpent that breathed fire. He had no idea where either neck or heart on the beast might be. He had no idea how to get close enough to poison it. He didn’t know a magic incantation for destroying it. How was he to ever fulfill his destiny and slay the dragon under these circumstances?

There was a sudden crack of thunder that broke Steven out of his reveries and caused Jasper to scream. In an instant, the rain had begun in earnest. Steven pulled the flap of his oilskin pack over his head and continued to trudge onward, now slowed to less than his most stately eighty steps per minute. But even at this pace, Jasper—wet and bedraggled—had difficulty keeping up. He was tired and wet, and soon the inevitable happened. Like the child he was inside he broke down in the middle of the road and wept.

“I don’t want to go!” he cried. He sat in the muddy wagon tracks of the supposed road and slapped his hands on the ground. “I want to go home!”

“But we are trying to get you home, Jasper,” Steven soothed. “There is only one way out of Lastford, so this must be the way you came in. Somewhere ahead is your home.”

“I mean my other home,” Jasper wailed, pointing back in the direction they had come. “I should never have come away with you. I want to go home.”

“Well, if you want to, you can go ahead and go home,” Steven said, his temper rising. “I didn’t ask you to come with me. It was your idea.” The fact that he had not told Jasper that he couldn’t come along escaped Steven. He had, in fact, been hopeful that having a companion on the journey would be a pleasant way to make the distance go more quickly. The two could tell stories to each other and keep each other’s spirits up. As it turned out, they were making each other miserable.

“Take me home, Stevengeorge,” Jasper wailed. “I want to go home.”

“Just go!” Steven shouted. “It is ten thousand three hundred two steps that way,” he said, pointing back the direction they had come.

“I can’t,” Jasper sobbed. “I’ll get lost. It always happens. I got lost and couldn’t find my way home. Now I’m lost and can’t find my way back to Lastford.”

Steven tried to explain. He tried to cajole Jasper into going. He even stomped off on his way, but had gotten only a dozen steps from Jasper when the mournful wail of the boy jerked him to a halt and sent him back to his side.

At long last, Steven helped the sobbing boy to his feet, draped a corner of his oilskin over the boy’s head and started back to the village of Lastford.

When they finally reached the barn where Jasper lived, the boy was instantly transformed back into the funny and pleasant host Steven had found when he first arrived in Lastford. He offered to go find food for Steven. He encouraged him to get out of his wet clothes and dry off.

Steven, however, was not encouraged. The day was far advanced and he had walked over twenty-one thousand steps and was no further than when he started. He stepped out of the barn with no more than a fare-thee-well and set his foot back on the road with determination. This may have been why he walked with such single-mindedness through the rain and the night, depending on the occasional flashes of lightning to confirm that he was still on the rutted path, that Steven missed the turning to the south and continued up into the mountains and away from the supposed location of the dragon.

OR THREE MORE DAYS STEVEN maintained his relentless pace passing through two more villages at forks in the road. At each of these forks, he maintained his course to the right, even though one of the roads running from a village looked much broader and easier than the one Steven had chosen. The road he was on now was slightly better traveled and he had passed other travelers in both directions. But he spoke very little to the other wayfarers on the road. He paused to lend a hand to a farmer and was given bread, to a woodcutter and was given dried meat. But in all this he did not offer to tell a story, nor was he asked about his hat or his mission.

The trail was getting steeper, too. Steven found that he could no longer be assured of twenty thousand steps in a day. His pace slowed on the uphill and picked up again on the down, but it seemed there was a lot more uphill than down now.

And so it was that evening was falling as Steven took his two hundred twenty-eight thousand eight hundred fifty-second step and suddenly became aware of a strange creature just off the path ahead of him. It was silhouetted against a fire and made restless movements from side to side. With each movement its armor clanged, and with each of its breaths the fire flared higher.

Steven strung his bow and nocked an arrow and began stealthily creeping up on the beast. It had killed recently because Steven could smell the singed flesh coming from the fire like roasting meat. In fact, it made his mouth water.

“Ho, dragon,” Steven called out drawing his bow. “I have come to fulfill my destiny and slay thee. Dampen your fires and turn to face your doom!”

With that Steven ran forward yelling as he went. But as he was a few steps away and was drawing his bow, his head was met with a clanging blow that sent him backward in a tumble.

“What kind of brigand are you that threatens an honest tinker on the open road?” an angry voice growled.

Chapter 5
Chapter 7

Chapter Five

2007-11-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

IRECTIONS WERE EASY TO come by but difficult to follow. Each person Jasper took Steven to see had an idea of where the road south to the dragon lay.

“Well, now,” said one grizzled old farmer, pointing, “you want to follow the main road out thet way. You don’t want to follow any of the other roads because they don’t lead anywhere. Thet one, for example, just goes out to Maggar’s place and it don’t go no further. Thet one over thar, it just go to… well, I don’t rightly know. En’t nobody goes thet way.”

“No one travels south,” said a merchant. “There is nothing but desert on one side and marshland on the other forever. If you take the main road you have to go round the mountains, but it is civilized. I’m sure you can find something useful to do while you are traveling.”

“You want to take the second branching to the right to go around the south side of the mountains,” said a musician. “The first road to the right just goes out into the desert and peters out there. I knew a minstrel who went that way once and was never heard from again. His lute showed up in a secondhand shop out in Highford.”

“Just follow the main road out a day and look for a big tree with a wasp-nest in a fork of the branches,” said a hunter. “Go toward the morning sun from there until it is high in the sky. Then listen for the sound of a brook and follow it downstream to where the deer come for salt. Just on the other side of the stream is the path that becomes a wagon trail that leads back along the river south.”

Steven was about to give up in despair when Jasper took him to see an old lady in a hut at the edge of town. Her hut was tiny and filled with smoke, choking Steven as he entered. But strangely, this little hovel reminded him more of home than anything in the town of Lastford. And the old woman reminded him pleasantly of the village wisewoman back home.

“And what makes you think it is a road that will lead you to the dragon, dragonslayer?” she asked. “It is not a road, but your destiny that leads you there. So follow what way you will, you cannot help but find the dragon.” She laughed lowly and Steven was emboldened to ask further.

“Do you have any herbs that would help me on my way?” he asked, remembering the packet the village wisewoman had given him.

“Herbs?” she cackled. “You want herbs? You have nothing to trade for herbs.” Steven was about to offer to trade a story, but he remembered just in time that he had not yet paid Jasper and it would be unfair to offer the story to the old woman. But she was not done yet. “You need your defenses strengthened. Give me your hat.” Steven was truly taken aback. He could not part with the implausible hat just for a handful of herbs. “I’m going to give it back,” said the old woman. “Come, now, have no fear.”

Reluctantly, Steven gave the old woman his hat and she examined it carefully. She lit a small pot of incense and held the hat out in the smoke, bathing it thoroughly in the pungent fumes. She chanted and turned it, waved it and cradled it. She placed it on her own head and walked three times around the hut. Then she slowly took it off and fastened a small piece of bone the snakeskin that bound the feathers to the sheepskin hat.

“There,” she said handing it back to him. “That’s the best I can do. Good hunting, dragonslayer. Farewell.” With that she pointed to the door and Steven emerged from the hut to find Jasper still waiting for him.

After a meal of scraps from the feast earlier in the day, Steven finally settled down in the barn to tell Jasper the story he had promised.

The Too Clever Maiden

NCE UPON A TIME, long ago and at least a hundred thousand steps away, there lived a young maiden who was very clever at getting her way in all that she wanted. She had two elder sisters who were always offered first choice of whatever came into their parent’s home. If it was cloth for a dress, the oldest took smoothest cloth, then the middle daughter took the brightest cloth, and then the youngest got what was left. When food was served at the table, the eldest took the tastiest portion, the middle took the largest portion, and the youngest got what was left. Faced with this situation from a very young age, the youngest found that her foolish sisters were easily manipulated. The youngest would immediately go to the coarsest fabric and exclaim over how the light shone from its beautiful contours. The eldest daughter would immediately snatch up the cloth as her own. Then the youngest would exclaim over the beautiful colors of the dullest cloth and the middle sister would snatch it up. That would leave the poor youngest child with the smoothest and most colorful cloth for her dresses.

When the girls came to be of marriageable age, the youngest decided she would have to be clever indeed to get what she wanted, for of course the eldest daughter wanted the richest man in the village, the middle daughter wanted the most handsome man in the village, and no one really cared what the youngest daughter wanted.

But long before, the youngest daughter had set her heart on son of the elder of the neighboring village. He was rich, strong, handsome, and powerful. Both of her elder sisters had cast a longing eye on this young prince. And so it was that the youngest set about her plan.

She sat one day at the village well gazing down into its depths, sighing softly to herself as she filled her water jar. The village wisewoman came to sit by her and asked, “Child, why do you sit and sigh as you draw your water? What is it you see?”

The maiden smiled to herself and said, “I see stranger coming to our village. He is handsome and rich and he has eyes only for me. He will take me far away where I will live in a castle surrounded by servants who draw my water for me, and maids who sew my clothes.”

Now the village wisewoman was not called a wisewoman for naught. She saw through the clever maiden’s ruse at once, but she decided that the girl’s tricks must be paid for. “It is a true seeing,” declared the wisewoman. “The girl is a prophetess. I have seen visions of this stranger from afar in my dreams as well. We should be ready for his appearance.”

The clever maiden was delighted with this result, for her sisters had abandoned all thought of the young prince from the neighboring village. Their thoughts were consumed by the tall dark stranger, rich and handsome, who would come to sweep them up to his castle far away. But the wisewoman arranged a trick that would forever silence the clever maiden.

One day in the spring when all things were bursting into flower and the new grain was peeping through the soil, a child ran to the village declaring a stranger had been seen in the hills heading their direction. The three sisters were atwitter with excitement. It was much to their surprise that they were commanded to stay at home when the stranger arrived in the village. They saw him only from a distance. And from that distance he appeared very powerful. He spoke to their father, the village elder and the village prepared a feast in his honor that night. But still, the elder would not let his daughters attend. At long last, the eldest prevailed upon her father to let her go to the feast because she was of age and should be part of the village councils. Her father relented and granted her permission to go. The second daughter prevailed upon her father to let her serve him at his table. It was only right that the elder’s daughter be the one to bring food to the elder’s table. At long last the second daughter won her father’s permission to attend.

But no matter what the youngest daughter said, because of the prophecy that she had, herself proclaimed to the wisewoman, the elder was loathe to let her see the stranger and she was commanded to stay at home.

Now when the eldest and the middle daughter got to the feast, they were not encumbered by their sister’s flatteries, and discovered quickly for themselves that the stranger was an old man, neither rich nor handsome and they loathed him. But when they got home late that night they told their sister quite the opposite.

“I am in love,” said the eldest. “He is rich beyond compare. He is a powerful prince among men. There is no doubt my father will arrange our marriage in the morning.” She giggled to herself and the youngest despaired that her vision was true.

“I am much more in love than you,” said the middle sister. “He is the most handsome man in the world. His wealth would mean nothing to me for there are stars shining in his eyes and the sun is in his smile.” She too giggled and now the youngest truly despaired of having her prince take her to a castle far away. All thoughts of the neighboring village elder’s son was driven from her mind and she was consumed by jealousy for her sisters.

Late that night she hatched a plot to circumvent the machinations of her sisters and claim the stranger for herself. When her sisters were asleep and softly snoring, the youngest daughter slipped out of the house and made her way through the shadows to the council house where the stranger slept on a pallet near the fire. She quietly slipped beneath the blankets as he slept and in the darkness enticed him to lie with her. Then she fell asleep in his arms.

In the morning, when the elder, the wisewoman, and the shaman came to the council house to address the stranger, they found the elder’s youngest daughter in his arms. She, awaking to find that her rich, handsome young prince was in fact a disgusting, old, and impoverished wanderer, immediately accused him of seduction and rape while he stuttered his denials. He fled from the village for his life.

The clever maiden, for her part, discovered among the bed clothes this remarkable hat. Realizing that she had been duped by her sisters and that now she bore a child no man would claim, she hid the hat away as her son’s only inheritance. That hat has been passed down through the ages and it is my good fortune to possess it now.

“And that is how you got this incredible hat?” asked Jasper.

“That is how it happened,” affirmed Steven.

“I can see the truth in your story,” said the simple-minded man. “Tomorrow I will accompany you on your journey to find the dragon. Perhaps as we travel, we will come upon my home.”

Chapter 4
Chapter 6

Chapter Four

2007-11-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

ORNING DAWNED CLEAR and Steven was anxious to cross the river. Ranihaha tasted the air with his finger and the water with his toes and agreed that it was time to go. He instructed Steven to strip naked and pack his clothing (including the hat) into his pack on the raft.

“I will go first, pulling the lead raft,” Ranihaha instructed. “You will come behind with the second raft in tow and will hold the front raft by this rope,” he continued, pointing to a short length of rope at the back of the first raft. “We should stay as close together as we can. The rafts will sway with the current and try to get away. We have to keep them under control.”

They stepped into the cold water of the river and unfastened Steven’s raft from its moorings. Steven immediately felt the current pull at the raft and stretch it out to his right downstream until it was at the end of the rope he held wrapped around one wrist and in his hand. Ranihaha loosened the lead raft and Steven grabbed the trailing rope as it came past him with the raft slewing in the current. Ranihaha stepped out in the lead and began towing the raft.

“Is there anything else I should be doing?” Steven called to him.

“Just tow your barge,” answered Ranihaha, “and if you are in over your head, hang onto the rope.”

The crossing was proving uneventful. Though the current pulled constantly, it was not so much that it cost Steven a great effort to guide his raft after Ranihaha’s. After three hundred trudging steps along the mucky bottom of the river, the water was still only up to Steven’s knees. With the village shore now only half the distance away that it was, Steven could see people gathering by the river and suddenly felt self-conscious about approaching completely naked.

“Ranihaha,” Steven called. “Why did we take off all our clothes. The water is only knee-de…”

Steven’s commentary was cut off by a mouthful of water as he plunged over a drop-off and found no solid riverbed beneath his feet. It was only Ranihaha’s last-minute advice that saved Steven. He did not let go of the rope. When he surfaced, his arms were stretched out as far as he could reach with the lead raft rope in his left hand and the following rope in his right. The rafts were now fully stretched out downstream, anchored by Ranihaha’s strong swimming strokes on the other side of the raft to Steven’s left. After an eternity in which Steven pondered how to count the steps he was floating over, his feet scraped bottom and gradually the riverbed rose beneath them again.

Just feet from the village shore, Steven rose up in the water as it became abruptly shallower. On the shore were gathered more people than Steven had ever seen in his life, watching and cheering as Ranihaha victoriously towed the rafts further in. Half a dozen men splashed into the shallows and began helping to guide the rafts up on the shore. Both Ranihaha and Steven were given blankets to wrap themselves in for warmth as the townspeople fell upon the rafts and distributed the melons. Steven’s bundle was unceremoniously dumped on the ground next to him as Ranihaha was helped into festive clothes by gathered admirers.

Steven reached for his pack and found a foot positioned directly in front of it. He looked upward at a tall gangling figure who stood looking down at him, outlined against the sun so that Steven had to shade his eyes to make out the broad grin on the youngster’s face.

“I’m Jasper,” the young man said stretching out his hand to help Steven stand. Even when Steven was fully upright, Jasper was a head taller.

“I am Steven George,” Steven said.

“Which one?” asked Jasper.

“It’s all one,” Steven responded, surprised.

“Okay Stevengeorge,” Jasper answered. “It’s a funny name if you ask me. Do you want clothes like the melon farmer, or do you just run around naked?”

“I have clothes in my pack, there,” Steven said pointing behind Jasper. Steven started pulling the clothes from his pack and putting them on, amazed at how to all the town, more people than he could imagine were in the world, he seemed almost invisible in the presence of Ranihaha, except to this simple young man named Jasper.

“Ranihaha’s really popular here, isn’t he?” Steven asked as he place his hat on his head.

“He brought the melons,” Jasper said as though that said everything. Steven wondered that his role having nearly drowned in transporting the melons was not valued at all. Ranihaha was still surrounded by celebrating people and a large number of women and girls who seemed to hang off every part of his decorative robe. “There is a feast at high sun,” Jasper continued. “You can come, too.”

“Thank you,” Steven said.

“That’s a nice hat,” Jasper said shyly.

“Thank you again,” Steven said. “There sure are a lot of people.”

“This is nothing compared to the town I used to live in,” said Jasper. “I wish I knew where that was.”

“Really?” Steven said in disbelief. “I’ve never seen so many people. My little village is much smaller than this. I’ve seen the same one hundred seventy-four people my whole life. Ranihaha is the first person I’ve ever met who wasn’t from my village or the mountain village.”

“And now I’m the second,” Jasper said excitedly. “That’s almost like being first.” Oddly, Steven understood that logic. “Are you lost?” Jasper asked.

“Oh no,” Steven said, proudly. “I’m ninety-nine thousand one hundred seventy-two steps from home. That way,” he added pointing back across the river. “How far are you?”

Jasper looked stricken.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t find my way back. I’ll tell you the story if you’ll tell me about your hat,” he said suddenly feeling he had something to bargain with. Before Steven could agree to the bargain, they were interrupted by an imperious command.

“Idiot!” yelled the officious-looking man. “Bring the melon farmer’s helper to the banquet.”

“Come on,” urged Jasper. “We don’t want to be late.”

“Why does he call you idiot?” Steven asked.

“Because I’m too stupid to go home,” Jasper answered. They got to the feast and Steven was seated at a small table far from the festivities where he could see that Ranihaha was still being honored as a hero. But the food was good and plentiful, even though Jasper was constantly being summoned to perform some menial task. People didn’t seem to be very friendly to strangers here. Steven surreptitiously pulled his hat out of his pack and placed it firmly on his head. People looked at him in silence, but didn’t ask about the hat or its significance. Steven was certain he could trade the story better now that he’d had experience.

After the meal, Jasper caught hold of Steven’s arm and dragged him to the head table where Ranihaha sat with the town council in a place of honor. It was obvious that Ranihaha had told the others about Steven because the person at his left began immediately to address Steven.

“You bear the badge of a pilgrim on that spectacular hat,” said the leader. “Where is your destination, pilgrim?”

“I am Steven George the dragonslayer. My destination is wherever the dragon lives, far to the south on this side of the river. I am ninety-nine thousand three hundred seventeen steps from home, that way,” he answered.

“Ah. A dragonslayer,” the leader nodded. “We had one of those once. He went off to slay a dragon and we never saw him again. Of course, we’ve never seen a dragon either!” he and the others laughed at this crude joke while Steven blushed. “Well, such as it is,” the leader continued, “welcome to the town of Lastford. You can sleep in the barn where Jasper does and be off in the morning on your quest. There is a path a day’s journey from here that cuts south and leads into the desert. That’s as close to a south route from here as you can get. Good journey to you.”

Steven was shocked with the abruptness with which he was dismissed. In his village a visitor would be pumped for stories until dawn.

“Don’t you want to know about my hat?” Steven asked.

“Ranihaha already told us about your hat,” the leader said. Then he had the others turned abruptly away. Even Ranihaha was too busy to spare a backward glance toward Steven and Jasper.

Jasper showed Steven the barn where he slept and the two settled in. Then Jasper told Steven his story.

The Wrong Way Home

NCE UPON A TIME, there was a woodcutter who lived with his wife and three sons near a castle where he sold his wood. The sons helped in the forest with the heavy work of chopping wood, but still the family was poor and barely subsisted.

Now it happened that the first son was brave and skilled. He could knock either of his brothers down in a fight, and his father never punished him. Many times the eldest brother brought home meat to the table that he had hunted, even though it was not strictly legal to hunt in the castle’s forests. There came a day when the eldest son set off to seek his fortune. He went to the castle and became a soldier. He had plenty to eat and lots of fighting to do, and he never came home again.

While this lessened the number of mouths to feed, it also increased the amount of work that the remaining brothers had to do. Now the second brother was very clever. Whenever he took wood to the castle to sell, he brought back more goods traded and more coins than even his father could do. But he was very unhappy with the work in the forest, so in due time he set off to seek his fortune. He went to the castle and began trading and buying and selling until he had amassed great wealth and was a merchant in the city, and he never came home again.

Now there was only one son left at home and the family did not have the hunting skills of the eldest or the trading skills of the middle son to help them survive. And with two less workers in the family, the woodcutter and his youngest son were hard-put to cut enough wood to subsist.

The youngest son was not good at anything. It took him a long time to cut wood, and if his father sent him on an errand it was likely that he would have to go find the boy and bring him home. He was always getting lost. But the boy’s mother loved him and he loved her. And so the woodcutter did his best to provide for his little family.

Seeing the strain that his father was under to make ends meet, the youngest son determined that he, too, must set off to seek his fortune. His father watched silently as the son packed his meager belongings and the mother wept openly to see her last son leave, but it was a great day for the son who had never been further than a further than the castle without his parents. Since the younger son’s brothers were prosperous and lived at the castle and had no regard for their family, the youngest son decided to turn his back on the castle and seek fortune in another part of the world, vowing to one day return to care for his aging parents.

But the world is a cruel place if you are not strong like the eldest brother or clever like the middle brother. When the youngest brother had traveled far and had come to another, even greater castle, he met a man with dark eyes who took him beneath his wing. This man was both strong and clever and the boy thought he was fortunate to have found someone who could take care of him like his brothers refused to. The man taught the boy how to find his way in the city, which was no small task. He did this by sending the boy on errands late at night.

“Boy,” he would say, “I have a need for silver candlesticks for my dining table. I saw a pair at Lord Vesper’s home. Be a good boy and run over to pick them up for me. The Vespers have gone hunting for a season and will not be home, so just step in and pick them up for me and hurry back here.” And the boy would run the errand.

The boy did not understand until “the awful night” that his friend and protector was a thief. On that night he was collecting a matched set of dueling swords from the home of the Merchant Gudby when the merchant unexpectedly returned early from his journey. The merchant called for soldiers and the boy ran for his life. The careful training that his one-time friend had given him was only for a certain part of town, and when the boy’s panicked footsteps took him into a different part town, he was instantly lost.

Thus cowering in an alley where rats fought over scraps of food, the boy determined to leave the city and return to his parents. He would learn the paths in the woods and become a good woodcutter like his father, for surely that was his fortune in life.

But lost is lost. The boy wandered alone until time had no meaning and place was defined only by his two feet. He became a man, but still was neither clever nor strong. Eventually he wandered into the last town on earth and, unable to find his home, decided to stay there forever.

That town is this town, and I am that boy.

Steven was moved by the boy’s story. His own small adventure so far was nothing compared to the experience and story of Jasper. The poor village idiot’s tale had awoken a pang of loneliness and longing for his own home. He begged that they wait until evening before he told the story of his hat, and Jasper agreed that they would spend the afternoon seeking directions for Steven’s adventure, for no one yet had been able to tell him how many steps it was from the town of Lastford to the road that would take him south to the dragon.

Chapter 3
Chapter 5

Chapter Three

2007-11-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

N THE MORNING, STEVEN HELPED load the raft with melons, and then asked how he could get across. Ranihaha showed him how to build a raft like his own. When it was finished, it was much too big for just Steven’s meager belongings, so Ranihaha suggested that they load it with melons as well. When they were finished, two rafts were loaded with melons and ready to cross the river with Steven’s belongings wedged into a corner of one.

The day’s work done and a meal in their stomachs, Ranihaha turned to Steven for the story of his hat. Now Steven was basically an honest man, but having heard Ranihaha’s wonderful story about the obstructive bridge made him feel as though the story of making his hat was small by comparison. It needed to be much more important to be a good story. So Steven cleared his throat and began in his best story-telling voice.

The Rejected Missionary

NCE UPON A TIME, long ago but not so very far away, there was a peaceful little village that knew little of the world outside its cluster of huts and the meeting hall where they gathered for festivals and councils. The village had occupied this little spit of land for as long as any could remember. They supplied their own needs and fed themselves from their gardens and sheep herds. The only people from outside their village that they saw were those from the mountain village who joined them once each year for a feast, dancing, and to seek marriage partners for the long winter months.

There had been no one else come to the village in the memory of the elders. There were no roads that led from the village further than the hunting, grazing, or planting lands that surrounded it. They were a happy people with no cares other than the cares of planting and harvesting.

One day there was a great stir in the village as a child had seen, from far off, a stranger walking through the fields. He was dressed in a foreign fashion with long black robes and a hat that defied description. By the time the stranger approached the village, all of the people had gathered at the council house. The stranger walked silently between the standing people making his way to the step where the village elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman stood waiting for him.

The stranger stopped before him and raised a bony finger to shake it in the face of the elder.

“You and all your people have been marked for eternal suffering by the dragon-god who sits in judgment over all mankind,” the stark figure intoned. “Repent, therefore, and turn to worship the one who judges you.”

Well, that created quite a stir among the people. They had never heard of this or any other god and had lived in peace all their lives. But the elder was a just and wise man. He, interpreting the shaking finger of the missionary as a greeting from this foreign person, stretched out his own bony finger at the stranger and intoned his own greeting.

“You will suffer a feast with the people this very day and will tell us the story that has brought you to our step. Bathe therefore in the river and present yourself at this step at sundown to trade stories with the people.”

The missionary had apparently heard every kind of invitation and threat before so he puffed himself up and raised his voice.

“I will be at this step when the sun touches the mountains. Let every man, woman, and child ready themselves to hear of their damnation and to eat the fruits that have been placed before them.” With that, the missionary silently departed through the people and went to the river to wash. The village made immediate preparations for a feast and to greet the strange guest as the elder instructed. This would be a feast of the proportions of the annual two village festival. Everyone was gathered together and ready by the time the sun touched the mountain.

In the sun’s last gleams, the stranger once again approached, and his incredible hat seemed to catch and hold the fire of the sun as he strode boldly among the people to the steps where the elder, wisewoman, and shaman awaited him. They escorted him inside the council house and seated him at the table among them and they feasted.

During the course of the dinner, the shaman remarked on the missionary’s unusual hat. That started the story-telling without so much as a Once upon a time.

“This hat,” started the missionary, “is the badge of my office—an emissary from on high bringing the story of doom to all people. It is made of the feathers of the serpent and the skin of the hawk. This is the nature of the almighty. The dragon swoops down upon the unsuspecting and devours them in his fire. And that is the fate of this village. The dragon waits on his mountain for the day when you are least suspecting—the day when you feast in your homes and say what good lives you have. On that day, judgment will come. All that you have will be as nothing. You will seek refuge but none will protect you. All your wisdom and all your lore will not help you. You will be as grass before the flames and tinder in the firebox.”

“That is a good story,” said the elder. “You are very exciting. And this hat protects you from the fierce wrath of the dragon?”

“The feathers are proof against fire and the skin against water. The wearer of this hat stands unafraid before the dragon,” said the missionary.

The missionary went on for a long time, but soon the people tired of his doom and gloom. They retired to their homes and the missionary was given a place to sleep in the council house. But long after the people had found their beds and the missionary slept, the elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman met together and walked by the river.

“It is all a lie,” said the wisewoman, “an exciting once upon a time. Even he does not believe what he says, but has said it so many times that can’t imagine otherwise.”

“There may be a dragon,” said the shaman. “I have heard of such in my lore and craft. Such a mindless creature could damage us like the stranger says.”

“So are we to simply send him on his way and trust that we are safe?” asked the elder. “His stories give no hope and no alternative to the utter destruction of the village. If people came to believe this, they might become desperate, leave the fields for fear, and sew the seeds of our own destruction.”

“There is the problem,” said the wisewoman. “It is not whether the story is true, but whether the people believe it. We must either be sure that the people do not believe him or offer some protection and hope against his prophecy.”

“Or both,” said the shaman. “Let us make sure people do not believe, but hold a talisman against the threat.”

And so they laid their plans. Little did they know that the missionary was busy helping them. When they arrived back at the council house to confront the missionary about his story early in the morning, they found the youngest daughter of the village elder wrapped in his arms, sated in love-making. They immediately drove the missionary out of the village amidst a clamor from the people for the rape of one of its daughters. He protested that the girl had come to him, but the elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman shouted down his protests and denounced him as a liar and thief. The people picked up stones to pelt the man has he ran from the village.

The elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman had planned for this and had placed the village hunter at the outskirts of the village. As the missionary ran from the village, the hunter took careful aim and shot the hat off his head. The missionary was too panicked to return for his precious possession and ran on into the woods and was never heard from again.

For many years the hat was kept in the council house of the village on display and in every generation there has been a dragonslayer raised against the day that the dragon might come against the village to fulfill the missionary’s prophecy. It was always known that if the prophecy were true, then one day the village would give the implausible hat to their dragonslayer. He would quest far and wide if the dragon ever showed his face and the hat would protect him when he faced the dragon. For if the dragonslayer is protected by the same feathers and skin as the dragon himself, how can he come to harm?

“And that is the story of this implausible hat?” asked Ranihaha.

“That’s the story, and that is why I wear this fine feathered hat so proudly,” Steven affirmed.

“There is more truth in this story than you think,” said the old melon farmer, surprising Steven. “Tomorrow morning at first light, we will cross the river.”

Chapter 2
Chapter 4

Chapter Two

2007-11-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

TEVEN CONTINUED ON HIS journey in the morning with a light heart and a ridiculous hat and feet that were slowing down his normal walking pace. He had changed socks in the morning, washed out his first pair, and hung them from his pack to dry. He discovered that he had blisters from the previous day’s walk and they interfered with his walking.

It was a short day of only eleven thousand two hundred fifty-six steps when he camped again and tended to his feet. He used a pinch of the wisewoman’s herbs on them and went to sleep, dreaming of the home that was now thirty thousand five hundred ten steps behind him. He was unable to walk along the edge of the river because of unpredictable marshes and terrain, but he had managed to keep it in view periodically through the day and was confident that he was still taking the only possible course of action. He only hoped that he would reach a crossing before he encountered another tributary like the one downstream from his home that would lead him away from his destination.

The next day his feet were better and he was able to make more progress. He encountered a small tributary to the river, but a tree had fallen across the water and he was able to scramble along its trunk far enough that he could leap to the opposite bank from its limbs. Now, if only there were a tree large enough to fell across the big river, Steven might manage to cross over on its limbs. This thought kept him occupied through step forty-seven thousand six hundred twenty-one where he camped for the night and through the incredible twenty-three thousand one hundred ten steps of the next day.

On the fifth day of his journey, Steven crested a small rise as he counted eighty-six thousand two hundred, two hundred one, two hundred two. There below him he saw the dragon. It prowled through a field huge and lumbering and as it moved it used its little hands to pop round creatures from the ground up into its gaping maw. Steven was horrified.

He strung his bow and nocked an arrow. Steven approached slowly this time, not wanting to repeat his fiasco of the first day. He wanted a closer look at this strange creature.

“Ho, Dragon!” called Steven as he approached more closely with his bow at the ready. “Stand and meet your fate for today you have met the dragonslayer.”

The dragon looked up, and then did a most remarkable thing. It stepped out of itself. Steven stared aghast as a man stepped forward.

“What do you want, stranger?” yelled the man. “Why do you come armed into my garden?”

“I’ve come to save you from the dragon that was intent on devouring you,” called back Steven looking at the rest of the dragon the man had left behind. The dragon was beginning to look more and more like a large basket.

“There’s no dragon here,” called the farmer. “I’ve heard of one south of here on the other side of the river, but he’s never come up this way before.”

Steven relaxed his grip on the bow and removed the arrow. He approached the farmer shyly and returned his offered greeting. Steven squinted his eyes at the basket, but he could no longer get it to look like the monster he had first taken it for. It was just a big basket that the farmer had dragged along on his back while picking melons.

Steven told the melon-farmer that he was on a quest to slay the dragon that harried his village, but confessed that he had never actually seen a dragon and mistook the farmer and his basket for the foe. The farmer seemed to get a good laugh out of this and introduced himself as Ranihaha. Since Steven was there, and it was the peak of melon harvest, and it appeared he was capable of carrying a great deal on his back, Ranihaha convinced Steven to help him pick melons which amounted to Steven dragging the huge basket while Ranihaha placed the precious melons into it.

When evening had come and Steven had walked another five thousand seven hundred sixty-eight steps in service of the melons, he sat with Ranihaha in the evening light looking out at the river.

Suddenly Steven leapt to his feet and grabbed his bow, pointing across the river.

“The dragon!” Steven exclaimed. “I can see the smoke from his fiery breath.” This set Ranihaha off on another fit of laughter at the naiveté of his companion.

“That is not the dragon,” laughed Ranihaha. “That is the town of Lastford. That is where I take my melons to be traded for the goods I need for the next year.”

“The next year?” asked Steven. “Do you mean you live here, but your village is on the other side of the river?” He began to get very excited. “Then there must be a way to cross the river. Is there a great tree that has fallen across it so we can walk across?”

“A tree? You mean a bridge across the river?” Now Ranihaha sounded both furious and insulted. “This is a ford—a place where you can wade across the river. Bridges are a great barrier to commerce.”

“I don’t understand,” said Steven.

Ranihaha nodded sagely. “You don’t know much, do you?” he asked. “I tell you what. I’ll tell you about bridges and help you get across the river if you will tell me the story of that very interesting hat you are wearing.”

“You mean you want to Once upon a time each other?” asked Steven. If there was one thing that Steven loved more than anything in the world, it was a good Once upon a time. If he could trade stories with the melon farmer, his quest would have even more meaning. When he returned home he would have more stories to tell his village. “I agree. You go first.” Ranihaha agreed.

The Obstructive Bridge

NCE UPON A TIME, a long time ago and very far away, there lived a melon farmer, like me. Now it is a trait of melons that they do not grow well where many people are likely to travel and trample their vines. But it is a trait of people who live together to want melons to eat because they are sweet and moist. So there have been melon farmers from the beginning of time who would live far from the towns and villages to cultivate the melons under favorable circumstances, and then transport them to the towns and villages in exchange for the necessities of life.

Such was the case with the melon farmer near the River of Stolen Dreams and the village of Tornlace. The melon farmer—I don’t know his name, but we’ll call him Portho for ease of remembering—lived on the west bank of the river where rich dark soil made the melons thrive. His crops were rich and his melons were so highly prized that the village celebrated the day when he brought the melons to town.

That village was on the east bank of the river, and because of its tasty melons and the great festival that it had when the melons came to town, people from far away began to visit at melon harvest. Many of those people found that the village of Tornlace was a pleasant place to settle and raise a family. And so the village grew until it was a town, and the town until it was a small city. The small city had to elect a mayor. It had soldiers and workers of every sort.

But on one day of the year, all work in the city stopped. Musicians played, people danced, and the mayor led a parade of citizens to the banks of the river to await Portho and his melons.

Portho spent his quiet life pleasantly. The melon patch produced plenty to supply his needs as well as what he took to market. But it was treacherous to cross the river at any time except the hottest and driest season of the year, when the melons are their ripest and sweetest. Portho studied the river and knew the exact day when it would be safe for him to load his raft with the harvest of the year and wade across the river towing it behind.

One year when Portho had harvested his melons, loaded his raft, and waded the treacherous waters of the river to reach Tornlace, he was met at the water’s edge by the mayor and the parade of people who fell upon the raft of melons with such ferocity that in mere minutes, all the melons had been taken and consumed. Portho was rewarded richly and dined with the mayor that evening.

During dinner, the mayor turned to Portho and said, “Melon farmer let us talk business. We have become a city instead of a village. The melons you bring across the river once a year are scarcely enough to provide our needs. Our soldiers are occupied keeping people from fighting over the melons you bring. They scarcely get any for themselves. How can we get more melons?”

Portho considered this and agreed to build a larger raft for the next year’s harvest and to bring more melons across with him. But the next year, the same thing was repeated and even with more melons, there were not enough to supply the still-growing city. When it was realized that Portho could not build a bigger raft and still control it in the currents of the river, the city council met to consider what would be done.

The next year, Portho was met with his melons in an open square surrounded by soldiers who kept the citizens at bay with their swords and lances. The mayor had officials who took the melons and distributed them to the citizens, soldiers and council first. Then the mayor sat with Portho and said, “Melon farmer we have decided that the best solution is to build a bridge. With a bridge that spans the river, we can cross over to help with the harvest, transport more melons across the river, and extend the festival season to many days instead of just one. What do you think?”

Portho considered only a moment before saying, “I have no need of a bridge. I grow the melons and bring them by raft across the river. That is the way it is and has always been. There is no need for a bridge.”

But the mayor and the people of the city were adamant, and Portho returned home silently, without the usual accompanying fanfare and without the usual wealth as the people began building the bridge.

By mid-summer the next year, the bridge was completed and the first person to cross the bridge was the mayor himself. He reached Portho in his garden and announced jubilantly that the bridge had been completed and they could now have all the melons they wanted. He reached down and plucked a melon from the patch, opened it with his knife, and took a huge bite. Then he spat the huge bite across the garden. The melon was bitter.

“Where are the sweet melons, you dog?” cried the mayor. Portho attempted to explain that the melons were not ripe until late summer when the water was lowest, but the mayor stomped back across the bridge in disgust, convinced that Portho was keeping the sweet melons hidden.

As the summer wore on, more and more people crossed the bridge, trampling the vines in Portho’s garden and sampling the melons with the same results as the mayor. But they found something else on the west bank of the river that people in crowded places are always looking for. They found space and good places to build homes.

Soon the bridge was jammed with people and carts bringing their belongings to the west bank of the river, building materials, and, of course, soldiers to guard their possessions.

When Portho finally judged the meager crop of melons he had left to be ripe and the river to be low enough, he loaded his raft with melons and set out across the river. But bridges change the currents in the water and before he was across the water, his raft was caught in the new current, swung wildly about, and was dashed against the pillar of the bridge. All the melons were lost and Portho barely escaped with his life.

He dragged himself to shore and looked at the ruins of his garden, the trampled vines, and the disgusting bridge. He packed his few belongings and a sack of melon seeds and quietly slipped away from the city of Tornlace to find a new garden where melons would grow as sweetly as honey and where the people had never heard of a bridge.

From that day forward, melon farmers have known that bridges are a great obstruction to commerce.

Chapter 1
Chapter 3

Chapter One

2007-11-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

IME IS A LONG AND TWISTING PATH. You follow the path and sometimes it seems like it is looping right back on you where you started. But it is always a new time, because you can only go forward. We meet other people on the path and for a few brief moments we share a time with them, but soon they are gone and we continue on our path through time. Always going forward.

Often, there are different time paths that we might follow, but we choose which path to take. And what happens to the other path? Does it go on, leading to other experiences and people? Perhaps that is where stories come from. When we “once upon a time” we follow a different path.

The Implausible Hat

NCE UPON A PATH OF TIME there traveled a man who would slay the dragon. He did not know for sure if he had volunteered for the task or if he had been chosen. He did not know when he would be called upon to slay the dragon. He did not even really know what a dragon was, aside from the fact that it was fierce and to be feared and it breathed fire. But he knew from his earliest memories that he was the one who would one day slay the dragon.

The man’s name was Steven George. Oh, yes. You’ve heard stories of Saint George and the Dragon. But you shouldn’t get Steven confused with the venerable saint. As far as we know, Saint George never actually met a dragon, and may not even have believed they exist. The stories of Steven George have been confused with Saint George because they share a last name and because in the old manuscripts Steven was abbreviated, Stn.

On the particular day that we pick up this story, Steven was about to set off on his journey to slay the dragon. The time had finally come. The evidence that Steven had was the fact that a sheep had been slain earlier in the week, its bloody carcass left partially charred near the river. The Village Elder said that the time had come. The dragon had attacked. We must send the dragon-slayer out to do his job.

Steven was pleased that this was the day that he was to fulfill his destiny. He had always known where the dragon lived. There was a high mountain on the other side of a wide river and Steven had often seen plumes of smoke rise from its peak. That was where the dragon must live. If Steven could just figure out how to get across the wide and treacherous river, he would be able to walk up the mountain and find the dragon. But Steven had no way across the river. So he had carefully planned his strategy. He knew that downstream ten thousand two hundred and thirty steps, another equally wide and treacherous river joined the one near his village and cut him off from progressing further in that direction. So, he planned to walk upstream until the river narrowed or became sufficiently shallow that he could wade across. Then he would come back downstream until he found the place of the dragon on the other side.

Steven was ready to shoulder his pack and step off his front step, the first step of his journey, when his lover approached him from behind.

“Steven, dear, I’ve packed you a lunch,” she said. She handed him a small parcel wrapped in oiled skin and looked at him lovingly. “So now you are off to slay the dragon. How exciting.”

Steven didn’t really know what to say, so he kissed his lover and said he expected he would be gone a few days. He already had strips of dried meat and dried fruits in his pack, but he accepted the proffered lunch, looked sadly at his lover and took step number one. Two, three, four, five, six. Steven always counted his steps. Steven felt that as long as he knew how many steps from home he was, he knew where he was. Steven counted the steps to the river, the steps to the pastures, the steps to the field. Steven had counted the steps between his home and his mother’s home. He had counted the steps around the village long-house. Steven knew how many steps it was to the confluence of the next river downstream and had walked the same number of steps upstream. Knowing the number of steps he was taking kept Steven grounded. Steven always counted his steps. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

Steven walked at the steady, measured pace of eighty steps per minute. To walk more slowly would make it appear that he was reluctant proceed on his journey or to perform his task. To walk more rapidly would make it appear that he was rushing and careless. He counted each step until he stopped before the village hunter who stood in the road blocking his path.

Steven had hunted with the hunter over the years and the hunter had taught him the arts of making arrows, setting traps, and surviving in the wilderness. Now the hunter stood before Steven and offered him his bow and quiver of arrows.

“You will need something to kill the dragon with, Steven George,” said the hunter. I want you to take my bow and arrows so that you can make our village safe from the dragon again.”

Steven accepted the bow and quiver of arrows gratefully from the hunter. He hadn’t been exactly sure how he would slay the dragon before this, but now he felt confident that he was fully equipped to slay the dragon. He proceeded further through the village where people were gathering to watch him go. As he moved forward—thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight—the village wise-woman stepped out to greet him.

“Steven, you will have many adventures and may face many dangers. This packet of herbs will heal any wound. Just smelling them will revive your spirits.” She lowered her voice until it was barely a whisper and Steven leaned in to hear her. “Just a pinch in your soup will make the poorest meal taste like a king’s feast,” she winked at him.

Steven gratefully accepted the packet of herbs thinking how fortunate he was to have this healing remedy in case he was injured. He walked on through the village—fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four. He came to the Shaman who stepped out to greet him.

“Steven George,” said the Shaman, “as you travel the path of time, wear this badge. It will identify you as a pilgrim in this world and give you safety and warm welcome wherever you journey.” Steven proudly accepted the jeweled pendant and placed it around his neck. He walked a little straighter through the village—sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one. Steven was near the end of his small village when the village elder stepped out to block his path.

“Steven George,” said the Elder. “You will journey a long road and will become weary. As the burden of this great task that you have upon you becomes great, take this, my staff to lean on. You are not only our dragon-slayer, but our emissary to the world. Wield this staff with authority.”

Steven accepted the staff from the village elder with awe. It made a pleasant thump as Steven stepped out with it and for a moment he was uncertain if the proper protocol would be to count the thump of the staff as one of his steps, but he abandoned that thought rapidly and continued counting only his footsteps—ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four. He was near the last step of the village when his mother stepped into his path to embrace him.

“Steven,” she sobbed. “I’ve given you everything I can—my love, my faith, my hope. But honestly, you can’t go off to who knows where without a hat. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

With that, Steven’s mother presented him with a conical hat made of sheepskin, complete with flaps over his ears. It was late summer and Steven was instantly hot, and embarrassed.

“Mother,” he moaned. But she beamed at him in pride, so Steven held his tongue and wore his mother’s gift as he stepped boldly out of the village—one-hundred-three, one-hundred-four, one-hundred-five. Steven did not look back. He set his face toward the river and proceeded to walk upstream until the village was out of sight behind him (at exactly six hundred thirty-seven steps) and then he lengthened his stride to a far more comfortable hiking speed of one hundred steps per minute.

The ground seemed to fly beneath him as he went with a light heart up the stream.

Going did not continue to be easy, however. After ten thousand steps, the well-worn paths near the village faded to lesser used trails to known places near the village. These faded to hunter’s paths which in turn faded to game tracks. Steven was forced away from the river by swampy ground, then by a forested ridge. He continued to push back against the land that seemed set against his plan to follow the river. His progress slowed and the ground no longer seemed to fly. His pace fell from one hundred steps per minute to eighty, to sixty, finally forcing him to slow to less than forty steps per minute in order to get through the brush.

It was approaching evening when Steven broke through the underbrush to see the river gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Just as he came from under the shelter of the trees, a flock of ducks noisily rose from the banks of the river, startling him. Lagging behind them, Steven watched as a writhing circle with wings on one side rose laboriously to follow the flock.

Steven was elated at his luck. Surely this must be the dragon, come to feed on the flocks by the river. He strung his bow and nocked an arrow, but before he could draw the bow the shape plunged out of the sky and fell to earth. Steven ran toward the site as fast as he could through tall sandgrass, not letting go of the bow and arrow. Suddenly the ground fell out from under him and he plunged down a steep dune, tumbling head over heels out of control. He landed hard on a soft object that made a muffled quack when he hit and then was very still.

Steven scrambled to his feet, raced to grab his bow and arrow that had flown from his hands in the fall and turn to face the monster. It lay still on the sand with the imprint of Steven’s buttocks pressed into the sand next to it. Steven approached cautiously. He reached out with the bow and nudged the beast, but it lay still.

He nudged the beast again and walked carefully around it.

Steven realized this was not the dragon.

A duck, apparently snacking with its companions in the shallows or on the shore happened upon a snake. The duck saw only the tip of the snake’s tail and thought it looked like a tasty morsel. When roused abruptly from its snakely pastimes, the snake turned on the duck, unhinged its jaw and clamped down on the duck’s tail. Thus joined mouth to tail and tail to mouth, the duck attempted flight with its fellows, but was unable to stay airborne with snake in its mouth and attached to its tail. Steven had seen it plummet back to earth.

We will never know if snake or duck would have emerged victorious in this little battle. When Steven fell down the embankment he landed on the stunned pair and finished their struggle with the impact. Both duck and snake were dead.

To Steven, what had appeared to be the dragon, now looked like dinner. He built a fire, plucked and gutted the duck, skinned the snake and set both to roast with a pinch of the wisewoman’s herbs for good measure. It was his first night out and Steven was nineteen thousand two hundred fifty-four steps from home. He feasted on roast duck and dried and packed the snake in the oilskin packet that had formerly held the lunch packed by his lover.

Steven tidied up his campsite, intending to get a good night’s sleep before he continued on his journey in the morning. Now that he had rested, he realized his feet hurt. He prepared to burn the duck feathers and guts when he caught sight of his hat lying a few feet away. The hat had fallen off in his tumble down the slope and been ignored until just this moment when, with a hand full of feathers, he spotted it again.

He looked at the hat. He looked at the feathers. He nodded his head as a new creation suddenly took shape in his mind. Steven sat and intently began jabbing the feathers into the fur of the sheepskin hat. When the hat was fully covered with feathers, he wrapped the snakeskin twice around the headband. Holding it in one hand, he removed the pendant emblem the shaman had given him and fastened the ends of the snakeskin together with it.

When he was finished, Steven’s hat looked nothing at all like the hat his dear mother had given him. In fact, the feathered headdress surpassed description. Steven placed it upon his head, picked up the staff of the Village Elder and vocalizing a low chant began to dance around the fire. He had not slain the dragon this day, but this day he had made a fine new hat.

In spite of his aching feet, Steven had had a grand day and slept a peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.

Table of Contents
Chapter 2