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Alice and the Dragon

Alice pulled herself through the tight passageways of the dragon’s cave. Doom lay ahead of her, and death lay behind her. How many days now had they been captive? They had seized little Gavin first, while she was picking berries. They had spent the afternoon at the watering hole and Gavin had tired of swimming in the murky green waters, so they had tarried along the road to collect some berries for dinner. Suddenly, he was taken, and she soon after. Certainly their parents knew by now what had happened, but they were now in strange lands she had never seen before. The way home was now lost to her. Was it over the mountains in the distance? Or was it across the hills to the south? They had not allowed her any exposure to the sunlight since they had taken her.

It was all she could do to try to comfort her the crying toddler and assure him that their rescue would soon come, even if she did not believe it. Truly it was hopeless. They were now two more stolen children in the world, the type that showed up at the markets and everyone knew how they had come to be there, but everyone pretended not to care. Or perhaps, it was true that no one cared.

They had stopped beside a large hill that rose abruptly from the trees. A stream flowed from a small crack in the rocks, and the two of them, as well as the old woman who had been with them when they were taken, and who appeared to be a prisoner of another sort but who had not spoken to them even once, were allowed out of the wagon for a drink.

“Don’t get any ideas, girl,” the leader, a stout man with a red beard and dark face, leered at her and caressed one of the knives he kept on him. She remembered the feel of its steel against her neck the first night, when he had told her... But she could not remember that, if she wanted to keep any will to survive. “One wrong move and it will be your last, and his.” He unsheathed his knife and waved it toward Gavin, who was oblivious to his danger and cupping his hand into the water.

“Do you know what place this is?” His accomplice, a taller man with auburn hair, stripped down to his undergarments and plunged himself into the small pool, fouling it with mud stirred from the bottom. He came up, dripping wet. Alice turned away. “This is where the dragon lives.”

If the word was supposed to stir something in her, it did not. What was a dragon to what their future held? It would be a relief, to meet their end by a creature of fire.

“Bah, did you hear the villagers? They were all in a tizzy, they’ve not seen the dragon in a few weeks. Anyone’s guess why they would be upset that it’s vanished. Anyone with a brain knows a missing dragon is the second-best dragon. Who knows where it’s gone off to by now? Who cares? We’re safe, that’s why we stopped here.”

He gave her a strange look. “Hey girl, you’re feeling brave, aren’t you?”

Alice did not look up from washing her face with the muddied water. Her brother had spilled most of the water he had collected onto his dirty shirt. “Here, Gavin. Let me help you.”

“I’m talking to you! Hey, girl! Do something for me.”

“I don’t intend to do anything for you. You have me, and I can’t escape from you. But that is all.”

“I’ll see to that spunk. Get him!”

Two long strides was all it took to reach the two of them, and a swift movement of strong arms split them apart. “I suggest you listen to him, girl,” he said. “I’d hate to drop him. He’d fetch a much lower price lame.”

Alice clenched her hands into fists. “What do you want?”

“Go get something out of the dragons’ lair. Anything, really. I don’t care. As long as it’s good.” He gave her a strange smile. “If it is, maybe we’ll let you and your brother off in the next town, hmm?”

“Get it yourself.”

The red man laughed. “Like I have that kind of death wish.” His face turned serious. “Go on then, go get something. Or,” he motioned to the auburn man, who revealed his dagger. “Perhaps this is where you bury your brother.” He tossed her his knife. “Here, I’ll even give you that.”

Hers was a bitter hope, one fraught with uncertainty and grief and hungry nights, little better than the fate that likely awaited them regardless. But still, at least there was some sort of hope. But to reach that hope required her to pass through this damp darkness to a likely death. This was a fool’s errand. Nothing stopped them from killing her brother anyway out of malice. They would, she knew. And probably her.

But then, death now was better than what waited otherwise.

The red one had come close to her, suffocating her with his rotting breath. “If you don’t go, I will sell your brother to the slaves,” he said. “And you... the whorehouses will want new meat.” His wretched smile spoke all the other words left unsaid.

She knew she was walking into a trap. Likely someone ahead waited for her in the darkness. She stopped and listened. There was no sound of breathing ahead, nothing in fact except for the spitefully happy trickle of water in the stream she had left behind in her groping.

Still she could not shake the certainty that she and her brother would be killed here, forgotten, never found by their parents, just the latest in the tragic story of children being captured by robbers. Alice found herself wishing that they would kill her brother here, instead of selling him. That, she could not allow.

The passage opened enough for her to stand. She held her knife before her with an unsteady hand, glinting in an unseen light. She had to go forward. Even if it killed her.

She took a breath and willed her hand steady. She would not die. She would get a trinket from an abandoned lair, overpower them somehow and escape with her brother, and they would hide in the woods and live off the land until they could return to their home.

All she had to do was take the closest thing to her and run.

Though she was by now deep enough into the cave for the surface to be cut off behind her, and the noises of the wagon and the splashing of the robbers now overtaken by the sounds of the stream, still the cave did not descend into full darkness and a warm, living breeze brushed past her face. She passed underneath a window to the sky. The sudden burst of sun pained her light-sensitive eyes.

The sun betrayed her fear, too. She had not calmed herself as much as she had imagined. Still the knife shook in her grip. She would never come out of this trap alive. She could barely hold this weapon, how did she expect to wield it?

Before her, around a sharp bend, the cave opened to a wide, well-lit chamber protected from most of the elements by an overhang. Here was the source of the warm air she had felt. It caressed her, almost like a breath, and she gripped her knife more tightly. And she shook less.

A dragon’s hoard did not look like she had anticipated. Rather than mounds of gold and jewels piled high in the chamber, instead there was a small selection carefully arranged against one of the curves of the room, as if some fussy sculptor had spent many hours getting the placement of the coins, the gems, the necklaces and all the rest just right. In the midst of all this was a marble statue of a headless woman, and on this woman was a dress of the most brilliant red, looking freshly washed and with no damage from the rain and wind and cold, graced with a necklace of stunning sapphires.

Otherwise, the chamber was empty. There were no villains waiting to kill her. Freedom was within her grasp. She tore her gaze away from the dress and the beauty surrounding it. She had one task, and one task only. All she had to do was take this amulet resting at the base of the statue...

“Do they think so little of me that they send a girl to take what is mine?” A rumbling shook the very air she breathed and caused the floor to quake. Alice slowly turned. Above the place where she had entered, watching her every move ever since she had entered this chamber, was the not-at-all absent owner of this collection. It glared at her with sapphire eyes. Its scales shone with some eerie light, radiating blue which danced on the ceiling above them. “And with a toy? Child, you know they have sent you here to die.”

Alice held the knife before her. Her death was certain now. The dragon did not lie. “Allow me to take one thing,” she said. “And I will leave you here forever.”

“No one takes anything of mine and lives, girl.” The dragon blinked at her, although it did not move. “Add your pathetic trinket to my collection and away with you. I will be generous and allow you to leave with your life.”

“If I return empty-handed, they will sell my brother and me and separate us forever. This is my only chance.” She gripped the knife with her other hand. “Kill me if you want, but if you do kill me, I ask that you kill my brother as well. He is not yet four. I will not allow him to live a life of misery.”

“Foolish girl. Do you believe they will keep their word? Perhaps I should kill you now after all as you request, and spare you the indignity which we both know will come for you... and your brother. You know what they will do. It will not be to any slaver that they give him.”

“I will not let you intimidate me!” Alice said. “If you want to kill me, then do it now. Look, I will take something from you right now. Try to stop me!” She scooped up the amulet and held it before the dragon. “Go on, do it! I will not let them take my brother and me to the slavers!”

The dragon pondered her for a long moment. Finally, it stood. The ground trembled beneath its feet. “Very well. But if you want my advice, you will stop them better with a sword than with an amulet.”

The shock of the dragon’s words made Alice drop her knife. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying, foolish girl, that I have changed my mind. I do not wish to have robbers in my domain. Get that sword over there against the wall, and let us see to your brother.”