Mark of the Dragon
The great king sat, squatting like a toad, on his throne surrounded by his courtiers and men-at-arms. Subjects of the realm from far and near had come to pay homage to the king. Even noblemen from the normally restive southern province of the kingdom were in attendance on this day. A ceremony to mark the king’s twenty-fifth year of rule was about to commence. Two hundred fighting men of the king’s elite guard, the cream of the realm and the bravest of the brave, were on hand, dressed in fine-linen shirts, crimson cloaks and doublets with the king’s emblem emblazoned. Their shields were likewise stamped with the sign of the king, while at their sides, each bore a two-handed falchion –– an indelible reminder of their strength and valor.
Every so often, at the sound of an imperious grunt, the slave-girl, Shanbrixia, filled the king’s wine goblet to the brim and handed it carefully to him while remembering to smile. A former princess captured on a raid, she was now forced to do whatever trivial or vile bidding the king could conceive of. So long as her feminine charms and the full, rounded contours of her figure continued to please the king, she was kept alive. Also pleasing to the king was her voice. Shanbrixia was said to have the ability to move even some of the most hardened courtiers when she sang. There were times when she seemed able to speak to the soul and to hold her listeners collectively in a spell. While she sang, images could be evoked of a heart in despair; of order and familiarity swept away like insects in a sandstorm; of youthful virtue violated and forever stained; of a distant, half-forgotten kingdom, now in ruins but frozen in time, where a childhood was once spent in gardens filled with rosebush hedges, violets strewn on maze-like paths, alabaster statues and birds bathing in flowing fountains; of elfin-faced young sisters with garlands of entwined ivy dressed in long, white dresses laughing as they run; of shimmering lakes occupied by milk-white swans and canopied barges decorated with cascading flowers gliding through floating fields of lily pads; and of forest walks with handsome young suitors who whisper devoted promises and speak of ambitious futures.
Having filled the king’s goblet, Shanbrixia lingered a moment to allow the king to run his short, plump fingers through a lock of her silky white hair. The slave-girl then returned to her customary place near the king’s feet, where she knelt down on a damask cushion embroidered with ostrich feathers.
As she knelt, she was watched with pity and secret longing by the court jester. Nor was it the first time.
Once, during a performance, when the jester fell and hit his head against the floor near her, he awoke to see her bending over him with a wet cloth pressed against his head. For a fleeting moment their eyes locked and smiles were exchanged. No words were uttered then or at any other time, but the memory of her scent had remained with the jester ever since.
Suddenly a great crashing sound rent the air. The entire back wall of the throne room crumbled. Bas-relief scenes of warfare and royal bull and lion hunts disintegrated into rubble. As the smoke and dust began to settle, sunlight filtered through. The hole was like a gaping wound. A dim movement was perceived, and most of the light was suddenly blocked. Only a few corner streams of sunlight now made their way through, highlighting the curling wisps of remaining dust in the air. Now emerging into view over the mound of rubble was the titanic figure of a dragon. The guard nearest the dragon instinctively raised his poleaxe in its direction. Quickly and unhesitatingly, the mighty dragon dashed the guard against the far wall with an iron foot.
“Now –– we’ll have none of that,” said the dragon in a deep tone that was like the tolling of a bell on a funeral day. The creature took a step nearer, causing the ground to shake momentarily with the force of his elephantine leg and pounding tail. Many of the frightened courtiers would have fled through the door at the other end of the throne room, but the door had been barred for the occasion, so there was no quick way out until the heavy bar could be raised. “The rest of you –– move not and resist me not, and most of you may yet live to see the future.
“It might interest you to know that the panthers, who are the only true natural enemies I fear and who protected the walls without, have all been slain by human agents of mine.
“Hear me, O man,” said the dragon, pointing a sharp talon in the direction of the king, who shivered in his throne and dared not follow his first impulse to flee in panic through a secret panel in the wall known only to him. The guardsmen and the elite guard did not fare much better, for one and all shrank back, knowing the terrible strength of the dragon.
“I hold you and your kind responsible for the death of one of my offspring,” continued the dragon. “Drinking of the water your kind have befouled, he perished.” The dragon paused. The terror-struck assemblage waited for his next words as if about to hear the pronouncement of a death sentence.
“I demand retribution. I demand ––” the dragon surveyed the faces before him, and his forest-green eyes fell upon Shanbrixia, whom he assumed from her proximity to the king and her entrancing beauty must be a great favorite of his –– “this one here.”
Shanbrixia screamed and half-fainted as she fell back onto the floor, a forearm covering her eyes against the awful fate that confronted her. The dragon’s eyes glowed with a terrible intensity and changed to a deeper blue-green color.
“You are welcome to her,” cried the king. Then, sensing that the dragon’s purpose was to take from him that which he assumed was most precious, added, “She is my life and my great love, but to save my subjects from further harm, I give her to you freely.”
At the command of the king, two guardsmen dragged forth the slave-girl to deposit her before the dragon. With a heavy snort that sent a cloud of steam from his nostrils, the dragon brought his weight down, crouching low on the marble mosaic floor like a cat. From there he stretched his long neck toward the terrified girl and sniffed her. Evidently satisfied, he began to pull back his outstretched head.
There was only one person who dared oppose the might of the dragon. Having crept slowly and stealthily along the side wall, the court jester at this moment reached the unsuspecting dragon. To act alone against the dragon meant almost certain death. This knowledge had long since bred complacency in the dragon. Whatever the reason for it, the jester now saw that the dragon’s guard was down, and this was all that mattered to him. It was not until the jester was almost upon him that the dragon detected his presence.
A practiced acrobat, the jester quickly scaled the blunt circle of horns just behind the dragon’s head before swinging his weight onto it. Then, reaching the end of the long, sloping brow on his hands and knees, the jester dropped flat onto his stomach and brought a dagger to one of the great eyes below. Two pupils that were like scimitars on end looked up.
“Hold,” said the jester. “Move not an inch, or I take your eye out even as my own life is forfeit.”
It had all happened so fast that the dragon had had no time to react. For a moment, he thought of throwing the jester off his head with a sudden toss of the head but then decided against it.
“You are brave, little one, where none other than you dared think to oppose me,” said the dragon, addressing the jester. “It seems that I am for the moment at your mercy. What is your will?”
“Release her,” he answered in a resolute voice that betrayed no emotion. “Swear to leave, and I’ll sheathe my dagger.”
“More than brave, you have a noble heart, it would seem.” The dragon’s whiskers quivered as he exhaled through his nostrils again and considered a moment.
Expectation hung in the air as he battled with his pride and weighed the loss of an eye against his desire for revenge. Finally, the dragon vowed, “I so swear.”
The dragon was vile of temper and black of heart. He was a scourge to mankind throughout the four corners of the kingdom, yet he lived according to a strict code of honor, and no man living could have said he had ever gone back on his word once given. It was with this in mind that the jester withdrew his dagger. Nevertheless, the jester was eager to avoid a misstep, so it was with considerable care and respect that he climbed back down from the dragon, using the horns like a flight of stairs.
Now free of the jester, the dragon raised his head up once again, leaving the floor far below. From his new vantage point –– almost at the ceiling –– he studied the fragile little human at his feet who had dared to defy him. Once, years ago –– in fact, decades ago –– he had fought a lone knight on horseback who had wounded him. The knight, swinging his sword from his saddle after discarding his broken lance, had shown remarkable bravery but at the same time reckless, almost suicidal abandon. The jester reminded him of this knight that he had otherwise not thought of for many years. For the dragon, the years of his life seemed to have stretched without end; his path mirrored the path of the flaming sun that rose and fell each day, perpetually in a state of renewal. In that time, he had slain countless knights, grinding, slashing or crushing the bloodied life from them. One was alike to another. Hatred and a desire for destruction had been the prevailing ethos, but in that one instance with the lone knight there had been something like a kinship between two mortal enemies.
The dragon was ready to depart. Before leaving, he said to the jester, “You put the knights here to shame. This alone satisfies my lust for revenge. I shall speak far and wide of how a mere jester risked life and limb for a damsel while the knights held back and cowered.”
Saying this, the dragon exited the hole he had created and began to turn the corner. One or two already-loose stone blocks fell away as a bulky shoulder brushed the wall. All eyes watched as the long, scaly tail of the dragon dwindled to a spade before it too disappeared from view.
With the exit of the dragon, the king signaled for one of his knights to kill the jester to atone for the shame that he had brought on all of them.
A cry of protest –– an appeal for mercy –– echoed in the chamber. It was Shanbrixia.
The knight was advancing on the jester with his sword drawn, when, with a start, he dropped his weapon and stopped cold. For behind the jester could now be seen the towering figure of the dragon, who had returned. “Nay. I overheard. Your cowardly kind are predictable. Touch a hair on this one’s head, and I’ll lay waste to your fields, your cattle, your castle and your manor houses.” Drawing back the ends of his mouth, he flashed his teeth that were like pike heads and pressed home his threat. “The tallest tower or deepest stronghold will not be safe enough for the daughters of rich men. One by one or in droves they will be taken to ransom. And neither will any coffer of gold bullion or jewels be safe from me. The servants of nobles or the nobles themselves shall be made to squeal the whereabouts or die an agonizing death such as only I can administer.”
The last two threats, in particular, hit home as far as the king and nobles were concerned, so it was readily promised that no harm would come to the jester. They well knew that the dragon needed scant reason to begin anew one of his reigns of terror over the kingdom.
“In fact,” continued the dragon to the king and his court, “as a last wish, it would please me to see the jester made captain of your elite guard –– and to be given the girl,” he added, noting that the slave-girl had clung to the jester since before the time of his exit.
The dragon’s orders were followed to the letter. The next day the jester was given a uniform and appointed captain of the elite guard. To the surprise of those who were highly ranked and who at first privately scoffed, the jester ended up excelling at his new position.
The former jester and former princess would go on to spend many happy years together and bring seven healthy children into the world. Profound contentment would reign in their small stone cottage with timber-lined windows located at the north end of the castle grounds.
When the couple died, both within the space of a week, they were buried side by side so that they could continue to be together in death as they had in life. Discreetly engraved over each of their names on their gravestones was a small clover within a ring –– the mark, it was said, of the dragon they owed their happiness to.
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Genres: Fantasy. Authors: H Ramsager. Form: Short Story. Length: 2500 words. Editor who accepted this story: K.E. Abel. Reprint History: First appeared in a 2011 Anthology that shall remain nameless by the author’s request.
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Abandoned Towers Content: Mark of the Dragon
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