We Fight Dragons (Volume 1, Chapter 7) 'Vision quest'
When Jam arrived home no one else was there. He didn’t know when Mum or Dad would be back, so he started cooking dinner for everyone. Lamb chops again. Thankfully, the kitchen had a gas stovetop, which seemed to work fine.
It took Mum an hour to get back from the city, and Dad arrived soon after the lights in the town had been restored. Both parents were thankful that dinner was ready, but other than that they appeared to be lost in their private thoughts.
‘Okay,’ Dad said eventually. ‘Lets end the day.’
They sat down and as usual Dad asked ‘Is there anyone here who hasn’t eaten with us before?’ For some reason, he made a point of looking at Mum this time.
Mum shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Hmmm, that’s too bad. Anyway, is everyone here true?’
Jam felt a stab of guilt. ‘I’m sorry I touched your amulet. I didn’t think it would cause any trouble.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ said Dad. ‘It was my job to make sure that you understood the risks. The electrical storm was bad, but I think we have it fixed. I’m just glad that you didn’t blow yourself up! So, I’m sorry I didn’t teach you about the risks. But we’ll correct that. Tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ asked Mum. ‘But he’s been through so much today.’
‘Yes. But you know that’s part of the deal. Now is a good time, while it’s still fresh in his mind.’
‘I guess that makes sense,’ Mum agreed reluctantly. ’But I don’t like how this is happening so fast.’
Dad reached over and took her hand. ‘Me too, love. But it won’t get better for waiting.’
‘Alright.’ Mum paused for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, David… I’m sorry that I asked you so many times to put off telling him… for just a little bit longer. I just wanted to protect him.’ A quiet tear fell down her cheek. Dad squeezed her hand, and Jam stood up and hugged her.
‘It’s okay, Mum. I’m fine. I don’t know what you are talking about, but I’m fine.’
Just before midnight, Jam and Dad walked back up the hill of the standing stones. They were dressed in warm clothing, and moved in complete darkness. They alternated between running and walking, as the slope of the path allowed. By the time they reached the top they were really puffing. After they found their breath again, Dad pointed at the rough sculpture in the moonlight in the middle of the standing stones. ‘We call it the Dragon-stone. What does that look like to you?’
‘I’m not sure. It looks different in the dark. I want to say… a monster. But that’s silly.’
‘No, it’s not silly. This is one of the places where the myth of Georgius and the Dragon is said to have happened.’ The idea struck Jam with a sense of wonder, that an ancient myth like that was linked to his town. Dad pointed to the ground in the middle of the clearing. ‘Sit there, in the centre of the stones.’
Jam sat down where indicated, and Dad hung his amulet around Jam’s neck. Jam shifted, nervously checking the skies for gathering clouds.
‘Don’t be frightened. Just don’t touch it. Let it sit there.’
‘Is it… magic?’ Jam felt embarrassed for asking. What would Mr Kirk say if he could see them now!
‘No. There is no magic in un-living things. It’s just copper, but the metal is a conduit. A conductor. You’ve studied that at school, right?’
‘Yeah.’ They had once spent a month studying the ‘minerals of the earth’ for morning-lesson, which included a side-quest into metals, and from there to electrical conductors. Jam remembered his drawing of a metallic lattice surrounded by floating electrons. He had drawn the electrons as excited, happy faces that were buzzing around the metal atoms. The electrons moved in swarms, because of something to do with ‘valence’ which he didn’t fully understand yet.
‘You need to slow your thinking,’ Dad advised. ‘All you need to do is relax and listen to my words, even if they don’t make sense. I will explain them to you one day. Okay?’
Jam nodded. Dad sat down facing him, an arms-distance apart, and spoke in a beautiful flowing language that Jam couldn’t comprehend.
‘Dad, what language is…’
‘Shhh… Try to relax... Just listen... If you still have questions afterwards I’ll answer them.’
Trying to quiet his mind felt awkward, and it took Jam a while. Slowly his father’s voice became muffled… and Jam’s sight became hazy. He didn’t know what to make of what was happening, and he cast at worried glance at the sky again, just in case the clouds had returned. The sky was clear.
Relaxing once more into the sounds of the words, his vision swirled like the last of the water draining out of the bath, and he felt a plunging sensation. A rushing noise filled his ears, like the roaring from before, but this time much gentler.
Mountains.
Plains.
A nomadic people coming out of the east.
His people!
These nomads conquerer all others before them, until they faced a man who served the ‘god of light’.
The man made them throw themselves to their knees.
The nomads swore to serve the god of light, and in return the god of light blessed them - men and women - to be his warriors and maidens.
The god of darkness was angry. Because darkness also controlled half of creation it cursed the nomads, twisting the gift from the god of light. The maidens would only ever give birth to sons. No daughters. The line of the nomads would die in a single generation.
But the god of light had chosen a clever people, and they found a way to survive, although it was always difficult and they were few in number.
As they had promised, the warriors fought the minions of darkness, including its mightiest servants, the Dragons.
As people spread west across the land the Dragons followed them, and the nomads followed the Dragons, protecting the people.
Frustrated that its servants were being thwarted, the god of darkness brewed a conflict amongst the nomads, and there was a split.
Half of the nomads stayed where they were, and the other half, his half, kept travelling west.
After many generations a nomad warrior pursued the last Dragon of the west to this land, where he slew it in battle, but the beast had already laid a clutch of eggs and one of them had hatched.
So the warrior stayed here, took his maiden as wife, and raised a family. In time other nomads followed.
‘Wake up!’ Jam could hear a voice. It was Dad’s. ‘Wake up, Jam!’
Jam slowly opened his eyes and saw the light of dawn breaking on the eastern horizon, as his father lifted the amulet from around his neck, careful not to let it touch his skin.
‘Jam, this is important. Quickly, find a stone from around here. Find it and show it to me.’
Jam was bleary, and his limbs felt like they hadn’t moved in hours, but he heard the urgency in Dad’s voice and got searching. It didn’t take long to realise that all the stones in the area were of a similar type. Hard and angular. He found one as big as his fist, and showed it to Dad.
‘Nice. Now come over here to the Dragon-stone. It is made from the same type of stone that you are holding. I want you to hit it with your stone, right here in the centre, and try and crack the Dragon-stone.’ He held up his hand, mimicking hitting the rough sculpture in the middle with a pretend rock.
‘But… it’s huge, and they are the same type of rock. I don’t understand. What is supposed to happen?’
‘Yes, they are the same stone. What happens is up to you. When you strike them together, stone-to-stone, the difference is your intent. What happens depends on how clear your intent is.’
Jam thought he understood, and anyway it sounded fun to get up in the morning and smash rocks! He took a few practice swings, lining up a real hit, but something felt wrong. There was no way he could break one stone with the other. He wasn’t strong enough to break either stone. Unless… he centred himself and thought back to how he felt when he had fought Niles.
The rushing in his ears returned, until it became a roar again.
Without thinking to do it, with the merest intent, he swung his stone and struck the centre of the sculpture. There was a mighty whip-like crack of sound as they came together. A powderish smoke filled the air. It smelled acrid, and left a tangy taste in Jams mouth when he breathed in.
A fresh splinter of rock, cracked from the Dragon-stone, lay on the green grass at his feet. He felt overjoyed that he had done it. Then he look at the stone in his hand. It also had a crack. It wasn’t split, but it was damaged. He showed it to his father.
‘Nice strike,’ said his father. ‘But you cracked your stone as well. What does that tell you?’
Jam had to think about it. ‘I guess it means that I’m strong enough to break rocks, but not strong enough to stop them from breaking.’
‘That’s good. Pretty close. Remember when I said that it’s hard to know when to act, but even harder to know how to act? It’s like that.’
‘Dad… can other people do this? See this?’
‘No. Only the people who’s story you saw tonight. There are other peoples, with other stories, but this one is ours.’
‘So… we hunt Dragons… but do Dragons ever hunt us?’
‘Yes. We have to be careful. That’s why we are all sworn to secrecy. You must never, never tell your friends about this. Understood?’
‘I think so.. yes. But why doesn’t everyone know about Dragons, and about us?’
‘Well they might have found out, except for a couple of things. First of all, Dragons are invisible unless they make themselves visible. Second, we realised long ago what technology was doing to the world. That is why we live out here. That is why we don’t allow you mobiles or computers, at least not until we know if you are a Knight and that you can use them responsibly.’
‘Knight! That’s a bit cringe, Dad.’
‘Oh well, your generation can think of a new name for us then.’ His Dad seemed entirely serious.
‘How many of ‘us’ are there?’
‘Well, there’s me and your mother, and a few other parents here in town. We know a few others like us around the country, and around the world. There is nothing stopping us from travelling. We go where we are needed.’
‘And we are needed here, in Blacken Green?’
‘In your vision quest you saw the egg that hatched, right? The last egg from the last Dragon of the west. It’s here, somewhere. It has never been found. Sometimes… I think I’ve felt it in my dreams.’
‘So Mum is a Knight as well?’
‘Remember your vision. The god of the light gifted the men and women in different ways. But… it’s best if you ask your mother about that.’
Jam thought it about what it all meant, and got excited. ‘You said there were other parents here in town? So, are any of the other kids in town also Knights?’
Dad thought carefully about how to answer. He didn’t want to give Jam unrealistic hope, or to rob him of it. ‘All I can say is, you are the most recent. You cannot tell any of your friends, no matter how much you think they might become a Knight, because you can never be one-hundred percent sure until it happens.’
Jam had kept secrets from his friends before, like the time he found out that Tobes was getting a chemistry kit for his birthday and had to stay quiet about it for a week, but this was like nothing else. This was weighty, like kicking a football that had been left out overnight and was heavy from the dew and could hurt if you got it wrong!
.