The Story of Silence

‘Haw! Now you’re sounding smarter. You’ve been of service, eh? So I owe you a favour. Well, I always pay my debts. How about twice the return? Twofold. Sound fair to you?’ The old man winked, and his eyes sparkled some more – glittered, even, as if they were silver, not blue.

Cador gave a slow nod, trying to puzzle out what the trick might be. Everyone knows how wishes work.

‘I’ll give you aid once when you request it. And once, I’ll give you aid when you do not. Do we have a deal?’ The old man quirked an eyebrow and Cador stared at him, seeming to see past the matted hair and the mud-streaked face for the first time, past all that to the blue of his eyes, sharp and clear as ice, with none of the fogginess and clouding that age often brings. He seemed to see himself reflected back in those eyes; himself, but more perfect. As young, as handsome, but more: beautiful, too. Strong and well shaped and … impossible. So much magic. Who could …

Cador shook his head to clear it. ‘Are you … are you Merlin?’

‘Very handsome. Not so bright. That took you an awfully long time.’ He held out a hand; his fingers ended with long yellow nails thick and curled as a crow’s talons. ‘Do we have a deal?’

‘Help now and help later.’

‘Yes, a good deal.’ Merlin wiggled his fingers.

Cador considered. ‘Can you tell my future?’

Merlin let his shoulders slump. The light in his eyes dimmed. ‘I could. But that is a terrible idea. Every fool wants to know their future and then, once they know it, they go on and try to change it. Well! Do you want to know? Or do you just want what you want?’

Cador scratched his nose once more. ‘I suppose I want what I want.’

‘Haw! Honest! And what do you want?’

‘Well, for myself, glory on the battlefield. A beautiful wife. Land – for, being a younger son, I have only a small holding of my own. And children.’ He paused. ‘But a true knight shouldn’t ask for himself. He should think of his king …’ Cador thought of King Evan for a moment. On second thoughts, King Evan did seem fine … ‘Or at least of other people. So, perhaps I could ask you to help my children. That’s my bargain – your aid, as you’ve offered, on two occasions, now and later, and that you will also be of help to my offspring.’ Cador finished with a flourish, proud of himself for thinking so thoroughly.

Merlin scratched at his stomach. ‘Mmmm. You want a lot. But you ask so nicely. Your offspring, eh? Help them?’ Skrtch, skrtch, he ran his long nails across his flesh. ‘Very well. On my honour as a wizard. I will do so. And enjoy it very much.’

Cador reached out and gripped Merlin’s hand. The wizard’s fingers clamped around his own, so tightly Cador could not pull away. Merlin stared into Cador’s eyes and once again, the young knight saw his reflection there, or, rather, his non-reflection. He could move neither his hand nor his gaze, but was utterly transfixed. His mind swirled in a flux of colours, and he felt himself grow dizzy, as if he was falling.

‘I can tell,’ the enchanter said, his voice clearer now, not the grating of a crow, but the mellow richness of a powerful man, ‘that you do want to know your future. You want a true prophecy of Merlin. So you shall have what you want: you will have One who will be Two. Your hand will cleave them and my hand will join them.’ Merlin released his grip, his voice returned to its disarming scratchiness and its hacking laugh. ‘Go on now. Haw! Isn’t there a dragon you ought to be battling?’

‘It’s a wyvern,’ Cador said, taking a staggering step, then steadying himself against an oak’s trunk.

‘Only an idiot would mistake a dragon for a wyvern. You need only to study its scales; if you see silver interlapped with green, it is a dragon. Only a fool would think otherwise. You had better get moving, young man.’

Reminded of his duty and suddenly aware of how long away he’d been from his king, Cador scarcely paused to say ‘thank you’ before vaulting onto his mount and sinking his spurs into Sleek’s sides. Off the horse leapt, back towards King Evan, back towards the wyvern or dragon or what-have-you. Away from the grove and the wizard.

It was only when the grove had disappeared that the strangeness of it all settled over him. He’d never heard of King Keredic. Or a place called Elmet. Had the old man played a trick on him?

He’d heard it said, never trust any wizard. And now that he was clear of the grove, the stories he’d heard about the old enchanter swam through his mind. King Evan was, after all, Arthur’s descendent, and bards loved to visit Winchester and tell tales of the Round Table or the story of how Merlin, racked with guilt over Arthur’s death, lost his mind, fled from court, and seduced a young woman, who imprisoned him in a tower. Or something like that. Cador was missing a few details. Truth be told, he felt a bit dizzy and now, in addition to worry about the dragon and his king, he worried that he oughtn’t to have tried to bargain with a wizard.

So addled was poor Cador by his time in the clearing that he lost the trail he’d been following and was forced to turn back, looking in vain for any mark of blood or sign of his earlier passage. But it was as if the forest had sprouted new, unbroken twigs, and let fall new, unblemished leaves. He drew Sleek to a halt and considered sounding his horn or crying out for help. In undergrowth this thick, the king’s camp could be twenty feet away and he wouldn’t know it. But to summon help because he was lost? Disgraceful. He’d never hear the end of it. He nudged Sleek to a walk and gave the horse his head, leaning forward to rub the creature’s ears – this horse could always find the way home. He settled into thoughts of Merlin.

And that was how he rode for over an hour, the sun now far past its zenith, and so he would have continued to ride had the scent not arrested him (more accurately, it arrested his horse, but I’ll give Cador some credit. As soon as the horse stopped, Cador noticed the scent). The scent. It reminded him of the rotting disease that once overtook the flocks that grazed near Winchester. The peasants had been forced to throw the many half-decayed sheep onto a massive pyre. There was that self-same acrid smell now, the stinging of burnt hair, and also the smell of utter putrescence (I doubt he knew that word, but I trust you, listener, to appreciate my use of it). He held a scented kerchief to his nose – for no knight as winsome as Cador is ever without a scented kerchief – and listened.

Quiet. A snapping sound, like that of a clumsy man making his way through the woods – but magnified. Snap. Snap. He squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees, urging the horse forward. Ahead, the forest thinned and Cador rode to the last row of trees, their trunks wreathed with ropes of mistletoe. Below, a bowl-like depression opened, its sides and bottom charred soil, devoid of vegetative growth beyond a few stumps that were blackened with soot or rot. Opposite his position, halfway up the far side of the valley, a dark hole gaped. The opening was surrounded by a tumble of grey stones coated with lichen the colour of verdigris and a smattering of white sticks, sun-bleached dead wood.

Again, the snapping sound bounced across the empty space, and something white shot out of the hole before tumbling to rest by the pile of … not sticks. Not dead wood. But bones. A large pile of bones.

May the Good Lord have mercy.

The dragon’s lair. Cador breathed slowly. If he was very, very careful, he could walk around this lair and proceed to put a safe distance between himself and this dragon. Not that he was fleeing, no, a knight would never flee. He simply needed to return quickly to the king to give him this valuable information about the dragon’s location. He pushed back his fair hair and settled his helm; the metal squeezed against his temples, a reassuring pressure. Then he pulled on his gauntlets and with some difficulty (curse the dragon for taking their squires!) he strapped his shield to his arm, wishing he was wearing full plates of armour and not just this leather and mail, which now seemed rather piddling.

Sleek sensed his fear and stepped lightly, not breaking the slightest twig. Below, snap, snap, another bone shot out. Don’t look, he told himself. But he couldn’t help it. He let his shield drop a few inches and squinted through the visor of his helm. From amid the pile of rocks, a green snout appeared, blunt and ugly as a snake’s head. Massive. The head alone was as big as Cador’s torso. From this distance, only the length of a village green, he could see two nostrils, flat and sinister, and, worse, the mouth below, where now a tongue – grey but streaked red with blood and forked – darted out. It occurred to Cador with a panicked lurch that perhaps the dragon could smell him … and know he was there. Not a pleasant thought. He raised his shield once more, his other hand resting on the pommel of his sword, and squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees.

Sleek flattened his ears but stepped lightly through the undergrowth around the basin. Cador moved his hand from the pommel of his sword to his breast. He couldn’t feel it through the mail and leather, of course, but he wore a medal about his neck, given to him by his mother before she died, stamped with the image of St Michael. He pressed his hand against his chest and through clenched teeth, began to pray. ‘Holy Michael, Archangel of our Lord and saint who vanquished Satan the Drag …’ He couldn’t quite get that word out, for the very real, very unvanquished dragon in the basin to his right had once again licked the air with its massive tongue. ‘Oh Lord,’ he tried once more, but his throat had gone quite dry. The dragon’s fangs, he noticed at this point, were large. Very large. Perhaps as long as his arm. ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ he croaked. ‘Please … Help me.’

‘Well! Since you said please, I’m happy to help. Haw!’

Merlin’s voice, rough and cawing, grated at his ears and Cador glanced around wildly, expecting to spot the naked old man in the trees. But all that perched there was a crow, clicking its beak at him.

‘You think I’m fool enough to get close to that serpent’s den? Haw!’ the crow snapped, ruffling its feathers. ‘You can hear me, but I’m miles away. This bird has generously agreed to carry my voice. It’s an arrangement we have. Let’s see. You have a spear. Won’t do much good. But maybe it’ll distract her.’

It took Cador a moment to realize that ‘her’ meant the dragon. ‘It’s a she?’

‘Yes, a lady. Haw! It’s a female. Some day it might even be a mother. That makes it all the more important for you to kill her. Battling a dragon takes great courage. There’s only one way to kill her, and that’s to get close. No arrow, not even a lance, can slay a dragon.’

‘Wonderful,’ Cador said, clenching his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. He rolled his shoulders back and gripped the shaft of the spear he’d just been told was useless. ‘So it sounds as if I oughtn’t to try to kill this dragon by myself. Rather, I’ll get back to King Evan and we can all go …’

‘Ah. No offence to you knights, but I’ve found that you have a tendency to avoid danger if you can. Quite understandable! It may even be judged a sign of intelligence! But I fear that if I let you go back to your king, he will want to gather an even larger army and make this into some sort of quest that might take months. And I have an interest in this dragon being vanquished much sooner than that. She tramples all the greenery and gobbles the mushrooms. Nothing left for poor hungry Merlin. Besides, you asked for my help.’ The crow hopped from one branch of the oak tree to another. Causing, Cador thought, an awful lot of noise.

‘No I didn’t. I was praying.’ He glanced to his left, where gorse grew in thick bunches, making a silent and swift escape impossible. With some reluctance, he glanced to his right. The dragon had extended more of its length from its hole and now its neck, long and sinuous, quested about the basin. Sunlight dappled down, setting its green scales sparkling. It looked almost to be made of liquid, it was so shiny and smooth, and in the way it moved, rolling like an ocean wave. Cador felt himself transfixed …

The crow squawked at him. ‘Haw! Worst prayer I ever heard. Help me? Really. Now listen. You can charge. Maybe you’ll get lucky. But in all likelihood, you won’t. You have to get close.’

‘How close?’ Cador asked. The wind gusted through the trees, setting oak leaves flapping, and he shivered inside his mail shirt. The crow just bunched its feathers up and pulled its neck in, staring implacably down on Cador.

‘Inside the reach of her claws. Right up against her.’

Beneath him, Sleek sidestepped and Cador reached out a gauntleted hand to rub the horse’s neck. He wondered if Sleek was bothered by the foetid smell of the dragon, which the gust of wind had not managed to dispel. ‘That’s very close,’ Cador said, keeping his voice low. He stared down through the branches into the basin. The dragon had, at least, withdrawn back into its lair.

‘You have to strike at her heart.’ The crow’s beak clicked.

Without the sight of those terrible fangs and the horrible tongue, Cador felt his courage returning. What did this wizard, this dirty old man, know about fighting dragons? He gave Sleek one more pat on the neck, ruffling his grey mane, and said, ‘Conjuror or not, I must tell you that I have no intention of killing …’

‘Are you sure?’

And with that teasing phrase, the ground beneath his mount’s hooves gave way, spilling Cador and Sleek down the side of the basin. The horse stumbled, nearly falling. Cador cried, ‘God in heaven!’ The horse found his footing, but, compelled by magic or some force of nature, continued his hurtling descent, with Cador as an unwilling passenger. He got his wits about him, raised his shield and couched his spear; how he wished he were back on the pitch at Winchester, tilting against a human opponent. But ahead of him loomed the dragon, all its hideous length spilling out of its lair, and who had ever jousted with a dragon?

Sleek reared up as they reached the basin’s bottom, and Cador had to pull hard on the reins; the horse gave a terrible shriek but dropped his hooves to the ground, jolting Cador hard. The breath rushed out of him and then he sucked at the air, drawing in a lungful of foul vapour, damp and rotten, the effulgence of the dragon. He coughed; his lungs burned. He felt Sleek restless beneath him, threatening to rear once more, and so he dug his spurs into the horse’s sides, driving them both forward.

Forward, towards the terrible beast, which had itself reared up, its head high above Cador, its belly – the scales there silver-grey-white – exposed. Cador spurred Sleek again, aiming them towards that underside, hoping they were moving fast enough that the dragon couldn’t lower its head to strike in time.

He lifted his shield so that it would guard against the dragon above him. Another shriek echoed in the basin – not Sleek this time, but the dragon – a noise like ten falcons, shredding the air. Cador struck the serpent, his spear hitting the grey-silver scales of the serpent’s underside and bouncing off, as if he were jousting a castle wall. The impact threw his shoulder back, sent him spinning in the saddle, then out of the saddle, tumbling to the ground, knocking the breath out of him again. He rolled over, got his feet beneath him and watched Sleek gallop away. At least one of them was safe.

‘Told you,’ Merlin’s voice mocked, ringing in his ears. ‘Go for the heart.’

Cador thought that if he ran, he might make it; his blow had stunned the dragon. A bit.

Take that back. The dragon was merely swinging away to land a killing blow. Cador drew his sword and dodged as the neck flicked out. Snap of jaws on empty air.

‘Cut inside!’ Merlin insisted.

Cador could summon no better plan, and so, instead of putting distance between himself and the dragon, as every instinct in him screamed to do, he steadied his sword and shield, and, as the neck drew back to strike, he rolled around a rock and darted past the clutch of claws, stepping against the serpent’s belly. He saw the wisdom of Merlin’s advice – this close, the serpent couldn’t wildly lash out at him. But the dragon began a questing descent with its neck, mouth open, fangs (they had to be as long as his legs) bared.

Worse even than the fangs was the tongue: gore-coated grey, thick as his arm. It flicked out, once, twice, almost touching Cador, and he shuddered. Every breath he drew brought him the metallic tang of blood; the blood of his squire, the blood of those helpless horses, and who knew what other victims. He would take vengeance. He was a knight. And so he peered out from behind his rock and studied the dragon’s scales.

The neck stretched up, too high for Cador to see the head (which was fine with him), so he looked at the underbelly, where the silver scales were tightly meshed as fine chainmail. Chainmail. That he knew. Chainmail had weaknesses. It was good against slashes, weak against jabs. Cador ignored the tongue as it flicked him for a third time. He had to aim well. Mail was weakest between links. He saw a few battered scales, perhaps where his spear struck, showing milk-white instead of silver, as if they’d been chipped. There.

He raised his shield to fend off the fangs, leapt, and thrust his sword forward. His shoulder jerked as the blade made contact and he pushed, until the serpent pushed back – its weight crushing him. He fell and rolled away. The ground shook as the dragon collapsed.

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