The Dragon Gate

[joegoda]

The sun rose, shining and warm over the valley where the Village of Shopkeepers slept. It shone down upon the streets, it shone down upon the Shops, it shone down upon the little houses and farms and ranches and sheeps and cows and growing things. It glistened off the snowy mountaintops of the Twin Mountains, and it blazed off of the forked river that ran in front of the Village dock. The only shadow that the sun refused to shine on was a large black ship that was tied to the dock. Long and sleek it sat, rocking gently, with sails stowed and tied away on their spars. It looked like pain asleep, like agony at rest, like sorrow frozen.

When Snark had gathered the crew on deck, Deth turned slow as an easy breeze to look at them. He took a long time to let a pause build up pressure, and then he started in a quiet voice. "My brothers. There has been a thief come in the night. They stole what was rightfully ours and carried it away, to where I do not know."

Deth put on the saddest face he could, which was still not terribly sad at all and instead was the sort of face one might see on an angry bear locked away behind the bars of a zoo. He sighed greatly to show how terribly sad he was. It was a small little sigh. More of a snort, actually.

"Lads," he said, raising his voice just a bit so that it would carry over his sadness. "We shall have to do battle today. We shall have to root out the dastards of this village and take back what they stole from us. They stole our very breakfast, lunch and dinner. They stole our water and they stole our gold. We shall have to find them and make them give it back. All of it. And if some blood gets shed today, just make sure it's not yours. Make ready, for we go to claim what was once ours."

With a shout and a roar and quite a few Arrrrs, the men set to work gathering their swords, clubs, cutlasses, and other weapons of death and destruction. Deth himself retired to his cabin and buckled on his cutlass, which he had named, and rightly so, Death.

When Deth and his crew had gathered back on the deck, he directed them to leave the ship and meet at the same spot where he and Snark had stopped at yesterday, at the place right before the Village began. As group, as a gaggle, as a herd, the crew of the black ship surged forward with all the piraty noise they could muster and met, just one hundred paces before the rose and rock.

"Men," said their captain, "do not go into the village proper. Do not cross this line between the common grass and the village, else, you will die a horrible death. I have seen it before, long ago, long before you joined me. Having told you once, I will not tell you twice and if you choose to ignore my warning, then on your head be it." In silence he watched his crew, listening to some quiet muttering voices that may have been words of question and dissent. "On your heads be it." he said again.

"Now, I want ten of you to go that way." Deth pointed towards a knoll upon which grew a single, twisted tree. "And I want the rest of you go to that way." He pointed the other direction, down river to where the farmers and ranchers lived. "I want you to leave no stone unturned, no door unopened, no tree unshaken. I want to find where everyone in this place has gone. This is not a very large place, nor a very large space. Seek them out; bring them here before the sun has risen to the top of the sky. Do not harm them, if you can avoid it. Do not shed any blood... yet. Bring them alive when you find them. You have your orders. Now go. I will wait here, and I will be plotting our revenge. Snark, I need you here with me." When nobody moved, Deth drew his cutlass and roared, "Go! Now!" and every man body of them almost ran to get away from whatever wrath was stored up in their captain.

Deth stood, back turned to his village. "Snark," he said quietly, "there will be at least one of the men try to sneak back into the village. When it happens, let me know, will you? I'm going to close my eyes for a bit and catch a nap."

Then Deth took off his cloak and spread it on the ground. Carefully, he sat on it, cross-legged. He closed his eyes and seemed to go very much asleep. Snark had seen this many times, and knew that it would take not much more than a quiet word to wake his master. The only sound that Deth made that let Snark know that Deth was aware and alive, was a gentle humming, much like the humming a hummingbird would make.

Snark sat on the ground himself, figuring he might as well make himself comfortable while he waited, and thought in his slow, slave like way. He knew of his master's odd moods and sometimes wondered at the things his master said. There were the occasional times when Snark thought to say something, to almost maybe argue a point with Deth. But having been on the receiving end of Deth's anger before, he knew that it would do no good. His master would do what his master would do, pure and simple.

Snark sat and just was. He was a simple man, and in an earlier time, he may have been a good farmer, like his da, or maybe a blacksmith, like his granda, except he didn't have the skill inside of him. He knew this because everyone told him. He was a bit slow witted, and he knew this to be true, and he was comfortable with it. The only pain he carried from his long past was when his own anger pushed him to hurt his da very hard, to the point where his da did not get back up, ever, ever, ever. His da should not have blamed him for ma's death. Snark had just been born, so how could he possibly have been the reason?

Snark thought about this strange village the had docked at and decided that it was really a kind of pretty place. He thought he might even be happy here, if he could ever be happy, or even know what that word meant. He listened to the quiet, and soaked it all in, just being. 'Tis a place I could be a farmer,' he thought to himself, 'or maybe I could find someone to teach me how to be a blacksmith. That would really be grand, it would'.

Deth made a sound. It was a low sound, rumbly like the beginnings of an earthquake, grumbly like an avalanche just starting, mumbly like the tummy in a hungry bear. Snark pulled out of his thinkings and looked at his master, curious. Deth's face had become all squinchy and tightly pulled, as if he had eaten something very sour and very bad. Snark became just a little alarmed, just a little, because he knew that there was not a thing that Deth could not handle and conquer. Snark fell back into his quiet and simple thinkings.

Moments turned into seconds, seconds to minutes, and minutes to longer times. Snark did not sleep, but he did dream. His dreams were his own alone, and we shall not walk into them, as some were very dark and frightening, and some were very light and joyous. His dreams were much like everyone else's dreams. His dreams, for good or ill, were interrupted by a sound behind him. He opened his eyes and quickly whirled around in the place where he sat.

Just as Deth had predicted, one of the crew was trying to enter the Village. He was not very sneaky about it, either. He just quietly walked behind where Deth was napping. The man saw Snark looking at him and raised a finger to his lips. Snark shook his head, trying to say "NO!" as loudly as a headshake can go, but the crewman ignored him and crossed the line.

It was not very pretty. As far as the Village was concerned, it was horrible, as the Village does not see things that are horrible very often. This is what happened:

The crewman stepped over an invisible line that marked the border of the Village. His foot just sort of ... stepped. When he tried to move the rest of his body after it, he found that he couldn't. This was because the foot that had crossed the line was no longer attached to his body. The moment it touched the ground on the other side, it separated from his ankle and moved away. There, the foot melted into the ground, and where the foot used to be, a single, small black flower sprang up.

The man tried to cry out, but no sound would come from his mouth. Without his foot, he toppled forward so that he fell, as he had to, across the border between Village and not-Village. And when he fell, he landed on his hands first, both of which followed the example of his foot. They separated from his body, moved a bit away like escaping spiders, and grew into black flowers, each with five petals.

His knees, legs, hips and shoulders all became black flowers, all growing very close to each other. When his head finally touched the ground, the crewman was very, very dead. His head, exactly where it fell, melted into the ground and became a small bush, tight and round and thorny. This bush sat at the middle of a tight little group of black flowers, and that bush had blossoms of its own. Two little blue button flowers toward the top and a very large round black flower near its base.

It was quite possibly the most worst and horrible thing that Snark had ever seen, and it settled into his brain and eyes as a picture that would never fade, never turn brittle and always be with him. Snark thought again about becoming a farmer here. He now thought that perhaps he might not. He remembered Deth's warning never to enter the village, and held it sacred. A part of him wept at the loss, but he ignored it. He knew, with a capital Knew, that this was a place that would never accept him.

He turned towards his master and said softly, "Cap'n?"

Deth opened his eyes and asked, gently, quietly, "Did it happen, Snark?" Snark, his eyes wide, nodded only once. Deth closed his eyes again and said, "Good. When the men come back, they'll know someone is missing. Be sure to tell them the story tonight, will you Snark?" Snark nodded again, and he knew that even with his eyes closed, Deth would know of the nod.

Moments moved into seconds, seconds flowed on and on, and Snark waited, thinking his thoughts and trying to not remember what he saw.

One by one, the crewmembers came back. Some carried the hidden Villagers they had discovered, some drug them by the collars of their shirts, and some led them, tied together like cattle. The Villagers were complaining and making noises and threats against the pirates. When the crew had all gathered and the count was taken of the Villagers, it was noted that there were only forty-three of them, and they were all men.

Deth stood before them, tall and dark and threatening. He raised his left hand and the complaining Villagers went silent.

"There are no women here," Deth observed loudly. "There are no children here. There are no old people here, either. This I noticed, as I'm sure you knew I would. They have been hidden away, and I'm sure that was a wise thing, mark my words, as I would have used them to get you to tell me where my goods have gone to. I would have taken them and gutted them as a fish in front of your very eyes. I would have roasted them as I would a pig, just for you to watch, and I would have impaled them as if they were sausage, just for you to tell me one thing." He paused and watched the effect his words had on the Villagers.

"Now," he said, quietly and calmly, taking two steps forward until he was looming over the assembled Villagers. "Where are the goods that were in the hold of my ship?" Not a Villager answered. Deth strode up to the nearest one, a tall man, with lean face and sharp nose. He was a Tailor in town, one of many, and well known by all the other Villagers.

"You, sir," Deth called out to the Tailor. "Can you tell me where my goods have gone?" The Tailor smiled, and just as the smile reached his cheeks, Deth drew his cutlass and slashed the man in half from stem to stern. One-half fell to the left and one-half fell to the right, and sad to say, neither thread nor cloth would make the Tailor whole again. The other Villagers, startled, crowded back from the sudden violence.

"Now," Deth said, wiping his blade on the Tailor's finery. "Does anyone have anything to say?" Deth looked at the Villagers standing there, mute as a cow before a rainstorm.

His gaze crossed over the silent Villagers and with one eye, he squinted a horrible squint that actually made a sound. It went 'Squint!'.

Deth picked out a farmer, a tall, round man, with shocking orange hair and walked right up to him. "You, there! Can you tell me what happened to my goods?"

The farmer had started to open his mouth to speak when Deth ran the farmer straight through the heart, striking him dead. The farmer fell where he stood and his blood mingled with the good earth. The cutlass was showing very red, and there was a hint of madness in Deth's eyes.

"I believe," Deth said calmly and smiling his terrible Death's smile, "that there have been enough examples given for right now. Far too much of my talking and not nearly enough of any of you talking." He paused and let his words and deeds flit thought the Villagers like a herd of cabbage moths.

"I will ask just one more time, and mark my word, if you will." Deth's voice started softly enough, as soft as a mother's breath on her babe, but by the end of his speech, he was shouting and the very snow on the Twin Mountains shook with the sound.

"I will ask," he said, "and I will give just one of you just a bit of time in which to answer me. Mark my words indeed, oh, deary dear me, yes. If I do not hear from that one of you that I ask what has happened to the goods that were in my hold just last night and disappeared just this morning, I will shear the hair from your heads, and your heads from your necks. Oh my, deary dear, yes, and mark my words at that. Mark my words well."

Deth crossed his arms and started counting. By the time he had reached the tw of two, an older man, who was not terribly old, but older than the rest of the Villagers had stepped forward. His ears were pointed and there were tufts of hair on the tips of those points, and he wore little round spectacles on his nose. His hands were a bit gnarled, but it was from use, not age. There was ink on his shirt, ink on his trousers, and ink on his shoes. His name was... well... It doesn't matter what his name was. He couldn't tell you anyway; it had been so long since he had heard it used.

"I know you, James Deth," said the old man, looking up into the face of Deth without fear. "And I can answer your questions, as I have seen it written in many stories."

Deth paused in his counting, stopped and bent at the waist and peered even closer at the man who stood before him. "How could you know me, you odd little man? And how could you have seen anything of me written in stories? There's been no one left alive to write any stories of me."

With a shrug, the ink man said, "I know you because that's what I do, James Deth. Do you want your answers or not?"

Deth turned in a swivel to look at his crew and laughed. "My, my! I do believe we have a brave one here, lads!" Deth bent closer to the man, close enough to smell the ink, close enough to see the calluses on the gnarled fingers. "Why yes, little odd man. I want to know the answers." Deth's eyes turned cold and the temperature of the air caught a chill and sneezed. "Mark my words I may kill you regardless of what you tell me, but mark my words, I will surely kill you if you do not answer me at all."

"Here then are your answers, James Deth." The older and inky man pushed his face just a bit closer to Deth's, so that Deth pulled back just a scootch, just a tad, just a tiny, tiny fraction of the smallest of fractions of a space.

"The things you stole," said the odd little man, "from the Village never left the Village. What your men carried were shadows of shape and form and weight. During the night the shadows faded as all shadows do when there is no light, and I can tell you, with no doubt and with no reservation at all, that there is no light in the holds of your ship. The shadows your men carried faded almost the moment they were set down."

Deth stood and listened. His eyebrows never moved from up to down. His mouth twitched just ever so small a twitch and it was apparent that he did not like what he heard at all. Not one bit, nor mote, nor twiddle.

"You stand there," began Deth, voice as quiet as pox, but growing in volume like an approaching sandstorm. "You stand there and you tell me that what we took were shadows? That the weight and volume of the substance that filled my holds was NOTHING? Smoke and shadow, air and bluff? You mean to tell me, little odd man, that what we carried was nothing but HOT AIR?"

"As you say it, so shall it be, and so it is written, so shall it be done," said the inky man. And having said it, crossed his thin arms defiantly, closed his mouth like a mousetrap and stared back at the ranting Deth.

Deth was so enraged by this that the ends of his moustache curled even more, and steam did indeed rise out of the top of his hat. His black feather wilted and fell to the ground and shriveled. He pulled his cutlass back to strike the inky man, and just as it fell to land a blow, a bluebird struck the blade so that it missed its mark and slashed harmlessly to the side. Loudly growling, Deth drew his cutlass back again to sweep in from the side and an apple falling from a far away tree fell from nowhere at all and caused the blade to strike the ground with such force that the blade snapped back and hit Deth in the shin.

"It would be best to try not to harm me, Deth," the inky man said, smiling tightly. "I think it would be best for you very, very much, and you may mark MY words." The inky man spoke with a darkness that was uncommon, something that Deth had not heard used towards him, ever, ever, ever.

"Away with this one!" Deth was in such a state that spittle flew from his lips to land sizzling on the ground at his feet. "Cause him no harm, harm not a hair on his head, but lock him tightly in the hold of the ship! Let him be like the smoke and, and the shadow he claimed was all there was of the bounty that is rightfully ours. I will deal with the rest of these... these... farmers", he spat the word violently into the air, "as I see fit."

As the inky man was led away, he could hear the sound of the cutlass swishing through the air, he could hear the sound of the blade cutting bone, cutting flesh, cutting the very threads of life. And the inky man wept, because he knew it would happen, and had to happen, because it had been written that the deed had to happen. However, he was also sadly glad because all was going as it had been written, as he had read it, so even with his tears there was a secret smile hidden beneath the sadness.

What was written that had been hidden from Deth? What could have caused the inky man to smile a secret smile? Dearest Beloveds, I cannot tell you that here tonight. That is a tale for tomorrow. I can tell you this, however. There is a shadow climbing one of the Twin Mountains. Up, up, up it has been traveling, after having crossed swamp, and before that, Darkling wood. No animal bothered this shadow as it moved, because the animals knew and understood why. Up and up and up, it climbed, before it stood before a Very large, Very clean cave, where the King of Dragons lived.

As you can see, the light has started, very small, but started none the less. Hope remains, life continues and love will see them through. Till next time, I remain,

StoryTeller.