Dragonscape

Dren was blind, his nostrils filled with the acrid smell of burning wood. He tried to breath and fell to his knees coughing. When he caught his breath, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Slowly his eyesight cleared, but all he saw was a gray haze. Standing, he shuffled forward, boots scuffing across the hard ground. The smoke gradually began to clear, until he could make out shapes in the distance.

He moved on, stumbling now and then over the uneven ground. The smoke continued to thin, and the sky took on a reddish cast. The shapes soon resolved into the charred husks of trees; this was a whole forest burned to the ground. Dren was no stranger to fires; he had seen them sweep through the woods near his home. But this was unreal. No fire could burn this hot.

No fire except dragon fire, he thought with a shudder.

“Feena!” he called desperately. He had to find her. He had no sense of time or direction, but his legs carried him forward. The foliage was burned away, but Dren realized he knew every contour of the land. The smoke closed in again as he moved deeper into the woods, but he didn’t need his eyes to find the way. He started to jog, but it wasn’t long before his lungs burned from smoke, and he had to take a more careful pace. When he finally emerged into a familiar clearing, he was drenched in sweat and his eyes burned.

What he saw caused his heart to leap out of his chest and into his throat. There was his house! Or what used to be his house. It had been reduced to a wreckage of blackened timber and ash. The stone chimney was a pile of rubble in one corner. Smoke still rose from the charred remains.

“Father!” the word tore from his burning lungs. He ran to the site of the destruction but had to shield his face from the heat that emanated from the ruins. There was no doubt – the house had been destroyed by dragon’s fire. Only such a blaze could burn so hot and destroy so utterly. He couldn’t make sense of it. Where was his father? Where was Feena? Could she have done this? Why would she destroy their home?

Dren circled the wreckage at a distance until he came to the southwest corner, where the pantry had been. Years ago, his father had dug a cellar beneath the pantry to store winter provisions. It was safe from predators, thieves, and, above all, fire.

Cautiously, he approached the house; the heat didn’t seem so intense here. Crouching at the edge of the wreckage, Dren saw that there was, indeed, a dark gaping hole out of which rushed cool, earthy air.

“Hello?” he called.

There was no response. He lowered himself over the edge, dropped into the void, and was immediately engulfed in darkness. The air smelled of earth and burnt flesh. “Father?” he whispered.

“Dren?” came the tentative reply.

“Feena!” he moved toward the sound of her voice. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dim light until he made out a huddled human shape in the corner. “Feena!” he crouched beside her.

“Dren,” his name became a choking sob as she clung to him. In all the years he had known her, he had never seen her cry. Now she was sobbing like a child. He wrapped his arms around her while she wept. She seemed so frail.

“Feena,” he whispered gently, “We have to leave.”

“No!” she looked up at him with panic-filled eyes then lowered her voice to a whisper. “She is out there.”

“Who is out there?”

She shook her head helplessly and looked away as tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the ash that covered her skin. “The dragon. Na’ade.” She spoke the name with awe-filled dread. 

“I don’t understand. Feena, you are Na’ade.” Dren shook her, harder than he intended but hoping to provoke at least a spark of the defiance he’d come to know in her. She just sat there, hugging herself with her arms. He couldn’t make sense of it. Feena was here, in the cellar of the burnt-out house where they had been children together, hiding from herself. From her animal self.

It suddenly became clear. Here inside her mind, she was two beings – Feena and Na’ade.

Girl and beast battled for control.

And the beast was winning.

“Feena,” he said, his voice calm and reassuring. “I’m going to keep you safe. I’m going to help you overcome the dragon.” He hoped he sounded more confident that he felt. “Will you trust me?” He stood up and extended his hand to her.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stared at him for a moment. Suddenly she took his hand and stood. How childlike she looked then, Dren thought, how small and meek. She allowed herself to be led out of the cellar and up into the meager light.

Dren gasped when he saw Feena’s state for the first time. The back of her shirt was in ragged tatters and clung to black, charred flesh. He reminded himself that none of this was real; Feena’s body lay safe and whole back in the waking world. But what would happen to that body if she died here inside her mind? For that matter, what would happen to his body if he died here? Or worse, if she died, would he be trapped in her nightmare?

“We can’t stay here,” he told her grimly.

As if to confirm his words, a thunderous roar shattered the air, and the dragon bore down on them, blotting out the sky. Feena was the first to react.

“Run!” she screeched and broke for the meager cover of the burnt-out forest.

Her speed was astonishing, and she covered the distance in seconds. Dren’s heart pounded erratically as he ran after her. When he reached the woods, he slowed his pace, as much to allow his brain to think as to avoid running headlong into the carcass of a tree. How could they subdue the dragon? They couldn’t kill it, for what good would Feena be without her dragon half? For now, they needed a safe place where they could rest and formulate a plan. Feena and Na’ade shared a past; what one knew the other presumably knew as well. That meant they couldn’t seek refuge in any place Feena knew. Yet this entire world was built from Feena’s mind. But how much new knowledge did they share now that their minds were at war? Dren did not know, but perhaps it was worth a shot.

He caught up with Feena and matched his stride to hers. The dragon was howling above them, lashing out with teeth and talons and tail. But the jagged spines of the blackened trees prevented it from flying low enough to reach them. Why didn’t it breathe fire and kill them? Dren wondered.

Feena. He spoke to her with his mind. There is a secret place near here where we can go. No one knows of it but me. He put an image of it in her mind, hoping it would be enough. She glanced at him without slowing, then changed direction toward the place he had indicated.

The scarred forest floor became gradually rockier; they were getting close. He was nonetheless taken off guard when the ground fell suddenly away, dropping steeply into a wide gully. Feena stopped short at the gully’s edge; but Dren, his eyes on the hazy sky, didn’t notice until it was too late. He plowed into her, and together they tumbled down the rocky slope, landing hard at the bottom. Dren groaned as he rose to his knees. Feena was already on her feet, shaking dust from her hair. 

Dren stood up sheepishly. “It’s there,” he pointed to a gaping hole in the base of the hillside down which they’d just come. Feena approached cautiously, crouching and examining the opening. It was man-made, there was no doubt. What protruded from the ground was just part of the entire structure. It was a solid rock like none he had ever seen before. Though worn down by time and the elements, the rock was not smooth, but pitted and pock marked. When Feena looked closely, she saw that it was made up of many tiny stones pressed together. Considering the stone’s condition and the way the forest had grown up to nearly engulf it, it was far from new. The opening was a rough semicircle, about two feet high and nearly twice as wide at its base – or it would have been if it wasn’t obscured by a tree that had grown in the opening. It was a massive oak tree, centuries old, and the strange rock was older still. The tree had grown around the rock, incorporating the rock into itself. What appeared to be the rusted remnants of iron bars protruded at odd angles from the tree’s base. Feena guessed they must have once stood in the opening to prevent anyone from going in. Or to stop anything from getting out.

“What’s down there?” Feena asked, peering into the darkness.

“Nothing dangerous,” Dren assured her. “It’ll be safer than staying out here.” He couldn’t be sure what the dragon was up to, but he didn’t think she had given up on them. They were the only thing standing between her and total freedom. “Come on.”

Passing through the ancient portal, they entered another world entirely. The air was damp with the smell of life and death. Scant light filtered through the opening to penetrate the underground world, revealing tendrils of moss that hung in curtains from the ceiling, glistening with moisture. The floor was a carpet of rotting forest detritus. Water dripped from cracks in the ceiling to form puddles in the rot, echoing down the length of the tunnel. It was exactly as Dren remembered it from his childhood. Of course, it would be, he thought. He wasn’t really in the ancient tunnel by his home. This was a recreation inside Feena’s mind, created from his memories of this place. It could be nothing but what he remembered.

Suddenly his heart sank. “Feena,” he whispered. “What would happen if you tried to come here without my memories?”

He saw Feena shake her head in the dim light. “I wouldn’t have come here without your memory. I didn’t know it existed.”

“But what if you tried to come here anyway?” he persisted. “If you stumbled upon it by accident. What would you have found?”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know. It’s not possible for any place to exist in my mind that I have no knowledge of. If you hadn’t shared your memory with me, it wouldn’t exist. There would be nothing here because here wouldn’t exist.” She could see that she was not getting through to him. “What are you getting at? Why would we to go to a place we didn’t know existed?” 

Dren shook his head. He had explored these tunnels; but he’d never found a back door. What would happen if they ventured beyond the bounds of his memory? He didn’t know the answer, and apparently neither did Feena.

“We can’t stay here,” he announced abruptly.

Feena shrugged. “It seems as safe a place as any. Safer maybe.”

“It’s a death trap,” Dren replied, angry with himself for not anticipating the flaw in his plan. “I explored only part of these tunnels; and never found a way in or out but the one here.”

Feena’s eyes widened as understanding dawned. “We’ll be trapped,” she breathed. With no more argument she headed back the way they’d come and began to search the wall for handholds. She found purchase and had only just put a toe in a crevice when she froze.

“She’s here,” Feena warned, her voice barely above a whisper. She began to tremble, and she pressed her face to the rock.

“Run!” Dren shouted, half-dragging, half-carrying her. Then he heard the roar and felt the heat upon his back. The dragon would burn them out like rats down a hole! As black as the tunnel was, a blacker darkness loomed to their right. Dren hugged Feena to him and dove into it.

They landed with a heavy splash, but the water was not deep enough to shield Dren’s shoulder from the jagged stone of the floor. The pain was nothing compared to the shock of searing heat and suffocating wind as the river of flame stole the air from their lungs.

As suddenly as it had come, the conflagration vanished, leaving in its wake an unnatural stillness. Stunned by the shock of finding himself alive, Dren opened his eyes but saw only blackness. 

“Dren,” Feena whimpered from beneath him. Only then did he realize he was laying on her; he had used his body to shield her from the worst of the dragon’s breath. He gently eased himself back and sat up. He reached out a hand to find her in the darkness.

“Are you…are you alright? His fingers brushed the scorched flesh of her back; she gasped in pain, and he jerked his hand back in horror.

“I’m okay,” she managed through the pain. He heard her struggling to rise. Dren wanted desperately to help her, but his fear of hurting her again paralyzed him. “I’m okay,” she assured him again.

“Can you walk?” Dren asked her. “We need to move.” He thought she nodded in the darkness. “Take my hand.” He extended it to her, and he felt her hand slip into his. For a moment, despite their present danger, he marveled at how delicate her fingers felt, how soft her skin was.

“Where are we?” she asked as they began to walk, carefully stepping over unseen debris.

“A side tunnel. Watch your head; the ceiling’s lower here.”

“You’ve been this way before?” She asked hopefully.

“I’ve been this way.” He hesitated. “But not far.”

 “Dren!” She pulled him to a halt. “We can’t go where we’ve never been.” Her voice was desperate with fear.

Dren squeezed her hand reassuringly. “We don’t have to go far. Just far enough to be safe.” And trapped.

Their progress was slow, though their eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

“I think we’ve gone far enough,” he said finally. “We need to rest. And talk.”

They sat against the cool rock wall, trying their best to stay out of the thin stream of water running down the center of the narrow tunnel. Dren thought how good it would feel to have a bath; he had never felt so filthy. His hair was matted with mud and ash, and he smelled like an open latrine.

Feena looked no better. Her face was streaked with soot and tears. Her once beautiful hair was burned and brittle; the hair on the back of her head gone completely. The rest of it stood out in matted clumps. Her clothes were tattered blood- and soot- and mud-stained rags.

He had never loved her so much.

Impulsively, he kissed her, pouring into it all of his love and fear and hope. And she kissed him back, her lips responding as fiercely as his. Dren marveled at the sweetness of her mouth.

Suddenly she broke it off. “I’m sorry,” she whispered breathlessly.

Dren wanted to ask her what she was sorry for, but he didn’t trust his voice. Her hand found his and held it, and they sat in silence for a time.

“We’re trapped,” Feena said at last.

“We’re trapped no matter where we go. This is your nightmare. We’re trapped inside your mind. The only way out is for you to master the dragon.”

“How can I do that?” Feena sounded defeated. “This body is so frail.” She touched the scorched remnants of her hair, and Dren saw tears in her eyes. “See how this body burns?” She said the word with repulsion. “It’s so…”

“Human?” Dren finished.

She swallowed her tears. “I couldn’t master a newborn kitten. How am I to defeat a dragon?”

“With my help.” Dren climbed to his feet and extended a hand to her. “You may be human, but humans can do wondrous things. A dragon I know taught me that.” He smiled down at her tear-streaked face. “I have an idea.”

***

“But Dren, I can’t. We can’t!” Feena insisted when he had explained his plan.

“It’s the only way,” he assured her. “And I’ll be with you.”

“We can’t,” she whispered helplessly.

Dren took her gently by the shoulders and looked into her eyes, so filled with fear. He couldn’t help smiling at her beauty. “Na’ade,” he whispered her true name. She shuddered violently. “Na’ade. That is your name. Do not fear it. You are the dragon. Your fear created this illusion and trapped you inside it. You spent too many years in human form, watching over me, the dragon locked away inside you. Now you have locked yourself away as well. You can’t hide from what you are. My best friend taught me that.”

Her bottom lip quivered. Dren ached to kiss her again, to hold her and comfort her. But she needed to find her own strength to do what she must.

“Your best friend?” she finally said, smiling.

He grinned, and she leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek. Then she stepped back. “But you can’t come with me now.” With one last crooked grin, she turned and strode resolutely down the tunnel, her head high and her maimed back rigid with purpose.

As the sound of her footsteps faded into the darkness, Dren made to go after her, but he moved as if wading through thick mud. He called out her name, but the words were swallowed up by the darkness as the walls around him dissolved into nothing.