Edgar the Dragon

Chapter I -- Not so much Edgar, but some old friends

Edgar the Dragon sat beside his lair and guffawed. Edgar was a mountain of a dragon, and scaly to boot. His color might best be described as some tinge of green.

Edgar was a lonesome fellow. Now he’d had so many knights sent to battle him and so many of them he’d scorched or swatted or caught in his hands and sent them hurtling through sky to have them land on some tree or other, their clothes ripped off and they still holding on to the one branch they’d managed to get their hands around.

The Knights had long given up. He was the unconquerable. He would remain while they died.

And a thousand years went, and in that time Edgar the Dragon became so bored with life that he decided he’d go to sleep and wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t wake up for anything in the world or until he felt he absolutely had to, or something very significant came up. So one day, Edgar stifled a yawn, laid himself out on a great big rock, closed his eyes, and promptly went of to sleep, and sleep he would, for a thousand long years….

And so many things happened while Edgar was fast asleep. His hated knights had all but vanished, their patron Kings and Queens had too. No one rode horses anymore. The spear, the lance and the arrow now belonged in history books, or in museums.

Of all this Edgar was totally unaware. But he had a big smile on his face after the sixteenth century onwards, a big grin rather, as if in some way he was looking forward to the incidents that would come his path. A mischievous grin, one might say.

It was a faintly sunny day that he was discovered, by two truant kids no less. (Kids? Not really, more on that later.) These two, nine years old both, took off from school to smoke a little in a relaxed environment. They went here and there, searching for that perfect place where they might smoke a little, and after a while, they became lost. They wandered into a forest, went deep inside, couldn’t find ways to get out, cried, vowed never to smoke again if that was the reason they were lost, felt cold, hugged themselves, told each other ghost stories in the mornings and during the nights couldn’t help but have their teeth clatter.

One was named Mike, and the other Henry. In the five days that they’d been lost, they looked rail thin, their bones stuck out. They’d been four whole days in the forest, and hope was running out. Would they ever find their way back, to warm houses, to the whizzing of cars on busy streets, to the smells of donuts, to the world of pretty women daintily holding little dogs in their white arms?

Or would they be swallowed by this beastly forest? Not that they’d met any beasts yet, but wasn’t that to come? What were forests like this for if they didn’t hold all sorts of savage, indescribable creatures, creatures that came out at night and whose eyes glowed and which looked human and not human at the same time….

One morning Henry woke up earlier than usual so that when he looked around, it was still dark. He looked to see Mike sleeping well and relaxed. But he became tense again. What was that smell? It was a smell he’d never encountered so far during all his four days here, or really ever in his entire life. It was a very strange smell and frankly it wasn’t all that bad. It was bad, but not foul, as his daddy used to call those smells that really stank. It certainly didn’t stink like shit, that was for sure.

He wanted to wake Mike up, but didn’t. Probably nothing, this smell. He should just go to sleep. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was to see a shaking world. Then he realized it was he who was shaking, and Mike who was shaking him.

“Hey, stop that……”

“Shh…”

“What?”

“Shut up, shut up, and listen……..”

“Don’t hear nothing….”

“Listen…..”

But he heard nothing, and said so. Mike grabbed one hand and pulled him up with a jerk. Jesus, but the fellow was surprisingly strong for having lived on leaves and berries for four days.

“Come here with me,” his friend whispered.

“What is it?” he wanted to know.

But his friend would say nothing, put on his face a mysterious smile and moved on ahead. He was dragged.

“At least stop dragging me like that,” he implored.

“Well okay,” and Mike seemed to be mildly put off by his lack of enthusiasm.

“You don’t seem to want to see it.”

“I do, but I just didn’t like the way you pulled me like that.”

And then the smell hit him again, and this time it was not fragrant or sweet, by any means. This smell, which Henry could just tell was the same as the one he’d smelt at dawn but different, was the most foul he’d ever known. Oh, but he wanted to tell his dad about this. Dad, I really smelt something foul today…….

Mike too grabbed his nose.

It must have been five minutes at least until the smell vanished. Every minute, one of them would test the air and finding it still stank would rush to cover his nose again. So it was only after five tries that they smelt the (almost) fresh, clean air again.

“It’s like a miracle,” Henry, the one who was always on the lookout for new words said.

Mike didn’t nod, but looked vaguely at him.

“You know what it smelt like? It smelt like ten thousand Calvin Smiths pushing their butts to the wind and farting,” said Henry. Calvin Smith, who went to school with them, was well known as being a particularly smelly fellow.

“No, it didn’t smell like ten thousand Calvin Smiths at all,” Mike said.

“Then what did it smell like,” Henry wanted to know.

“It smelt like……”

“What?”

“Come on I’ll show you..”

They went over slippery rocks and across rotting trees lying across which had been taken over by mushrooms and they, or more precisely, Henry, almost slipped on the rocks several times. Mike was more sure-footed; he just seemed to know where he was going, and that, Henry thought, was very strange.

“Look at me.”

“What?”

“Loot at me Mike. C’mon, once.”

“Why?”

“I want to see. You. You look funny, like I can see you but I really can’t. Your eyes especially. They’re strange. And how do you know where we’re going?”

To which Mike laughed weakly.

“I know,” he said, and grabbed Henry’s arm again and led him.

Was it only his imagination, or was the forest growing thinner? Henry’s spirits rose, but so did his sense of distrust for his friend. What had happened to him? How had he turned so strange? He supposed the answer lay in that smell. Some of it at least.

He let out a gasp at the sight he was led to. For ahead of them, its color a gentle blue, was the sea. The sea! But that was unimaginable. Where they lived, that was hundreds of miles from the shore. This must be a dream, this had to be one. No way was this the real sea….

There were almost at the edge of a cliff of some sort. The sound of the lapping waves was so soothing. Henry looked behind him to see the trees seem already faraway, as if, by having come here, beside the sea, he’d already left them behind.

But Mike wasn’t done leading him to where he wanted to take him.

“Come on,” he said, “this way.”

They went right to the edge, and Henry felt a sense of terror run through him. He was scared of heights, what was he doing? He couldn’t even look from the top of a five storey building without feeling dizzy and here he was, going to the edge of a cliff that was hundreds of feet higher than the sea.

But he couldn’t stop; he felt himself being led. Oh, Mike had him under control. Somehow Mike was controlling him, and in that moment he was more terrified of his good friend than all the beasts and demons of his nighttime imaginings.

His friend as the demon, that was the worst feeling of all, and yet he walked.

He couldn’t look. Oh, Dear God, but why should he, who hated heights so much, have to look down from a high cliff. Oh God, but he was feeling out of breath. No, he couldn’t look down anymore, no, he couldn’t, once more and he might not be able to take it, he might just somehow be drawn into his fear and completely lose himself to it, he might just slip on a rock, such as he’d already done and just keep falling down till he reached the ground, he might…..

He realized by then that he’d already gone down a fair bit. He looked at one hand, and it was covered in green and black, green from the mosses, black from the rock face. He looked up, and the sun was directly overhead, and this caused him momentarily blindness and a feeling that he was going to slip, and fall down to his death.

“No you’re not,” said a voice from below, which he knew to be Mike’s and he thought, what the hell, he’s right. He wasn’t going to slip, look at him now, how steady his legs were, how well they fitted inside the cracks. No, he wasn’t going to slip.

And the next time he came to a stop, it was when they were halfway down. It was so tiring by then, he needed to take in a breath or two. He wished they had some water, he was thirsty too. And damn it, after all this time, had they just come halfway? That was maddening.

“We’ve already come halfway,” said Mike, who by then had turned into a complete mind-reader.

“Are you reading my mind,” asked Henry, more out of curiosity to hear what his friend would say than anything else.

Mike didn’t answer.

“Okay, where are we going?” asked Henry.

“You’ll see.”

“Oh, no, I can’t see anymore. I almost blinded myself looking at the sun. I can’t see. Please tell me where we’re going. I’ve followed you all this while. Now I need answers. I’m halfway down a steep cliff, me who is so scared of heights, and if you don’t tell me what we’re going down for, at this point I feel I might let myself fall and crash…..”

There was silence then, broken only by the waves.

“I’m taking you to see a friend.”

“ A friend…..”

“A friend from a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that we’ve both completely forgotten about him. But he hasn’t forgotten.”

“Who is this friend? Mark Davis?”

“Mike laughed. Mark Davis, he left two years ago for Brazil. No, its not him. I mean, a much, much older friend.”

“You mean Edgar,” said Henry, while having no idea where that had come from.

“Yes, I do mean Edgar,” Mike said gleefully, seeming happy that his friend had figured where they were going all by himself.

“But who’s Edgar,” Henry asked.

“You just said you knew who he was.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t’ say I knew who he was. The name just came at me from nowhere. I don’t remember ever having a friend called Edgar, and I don’t remember ever talking like this. I feel very grown up, all of a sudden.”

“Edgar, Edgar, how could you have forgotten who he was? Edgar killed us both.”

Which almost caused Henry to fall.

“What? What?”

“Edgar, Edgar, our sworn nemesis, Sir Henry. Do you remember, Sir Henry, how you cornered him one day, using your new fangled inventions, and he almost fell for it, or so you thought, but then he had a trick of his own up his sleeve, and how he gave you that wink before reducing you to cinders, and remember what you said, just before you died…..”

“I will be back…….”

“Exactly. You’ll be back. That’s what you said then…..”

“But, Sir Michael, what happened to you? I remember, ah how well I remember now. I remember you were being chased by it all over, and that’s when I decided to kill it by myself, knowing that I couldn’t count on you. All you did was run around in circles…..”

“Oh, how easily you forget Sir Henry. I was going around in circles, exposing myself to the beast, so that you may attack…..”

“Oh, I see. But afterwards, what happened to you, Sir Michael. I need to know, I’m very curious.”

“Oh, he cut me up and had me for his dinner.”

“Oh, Our Edgar was a man eater, was he?”

“No, he really wasn’t. But in me, he saw such a brave soul that he decided to open me and eat my heart.”

“Damn it, Sir Michael, but you’re right. You always trumped me in the ‘courage and bravery’ department.”

And by the time the conversation was over, they were almost at the bottom, and Mike, or Sir Michael, let himself go and landed on all fours at the bottom. Sir Henry followed, and almost landed right on top of Sir Michael.

“Oh, for God’s sakes, Sir Henry, be careful,” we’re supposed to be dragon slayers. Dragon slayers don’t jump on each other and break each other’s bones.

“But, Sir Michael,” said Sir Henry, getting up and dusting off the sand from his clothes, “the reason I fell on you was that I was suddenly filled with a feeling of such complete hopelessness that I lost all my senses.”

“And what would that feeling be?”

“Well, Sir Michael, if we’re to fight this dragon, and assuming that this dragon’s every bit as mean and cunning as when we last saw him, don’t you think we’re a little under-equipped? I mean, look at us. We’ve neither knight’s attire, nor arms nor horses. Furthermore, we may talk like big men, but we actually look like little children. How are we to go fight Dragon Edgar in this state?”

Sir Michael listened deeply to what his fellow knight had to say, all the while scratching his chin, in exact imitation of himself those eleven hundred years ago, when he’d often scratch his then bearded chin whenever he was in deep thought.

“You’re right Sir Henry. We can’t fight the beast this way. In fact, the beast might be so disappointed with our appearance that it might take to go back into its cave or wherever its been hiding. Sir Henry, you’ve made a very astute observation, and the answer to your question I’m unable to give right now….”

“Look, a fellow comes,” said Sir Henry.

Sure enough, someone was walking towards them, though he was so faraway that they couldn’t say anything specific about the creature, only that it appeared humanoid. They couldn’t say whether it was man or woman, big or small, fat or thin, or anything.

“Lets wait till it gets close, Sir Michael, then we can ask it.”

“Ask it what?”

“Where to get the things we want.”

The fellow turned out to be a bearded man outfitted in that same sort of ridiculous attire that they were dressed in. On one hand was the strangest accessory of all. It was some sort of bracelet that was very large at the center and the top part covered with glass.

He appeared not to have seen them at all, and even when he did, he only smiled at them and kept walking.

“Excuse me sir, stop,” said Sir Michael.

The man stopped, and then turned around suddenly.

“Yes,” he asked, “ what do you want?”

“We need clothes, good, decent knight’s armor. We need to kill the dragon Edgar.”

“Oh,” the man laughed, and pointed to Sir Henry, “and you’re Sancho, I presume.”

“Sancho, who’s that? I’m Sir Henry,” thundered Sir Henry.

“Oh, two knights,” giggled the man. “Not one but two, I see. Well gentlemen, I’m very happy to have made your acquaintance, but I have to get going. And how did you get here by the way?”

“Never mind how we got here,” said Sir Michael, “ what about our armor, and our horses, where do we get that?”

“Look kids,” said the man furrowing his brows, “ I have to say, you’re doing a bang up job as far as acting is concerned. Damn it, oops, hell, oops, oh whatever, anyway, as I was saying, nowadays, to get two decent actors is a hell of a job, oops again, and you two, you’re convincing all right. When your friend here said, no I’m Sir Henry, for a minute I was totally convinced. Really, he did look to me like he was a Sir Henry, slayer of dragons and righter of wrongs. If you must know, mythology says there was a Sir Henry who slew dragons left and right until he came upon the most mighty of them all, so mighty that even he couldn’t do nothing about it, but he was so brave, this Sir Henry, so brave, that he decided he’d single handedly go and fight the beast……..”

“That’s a lie, a grievous, egregious lie,” cried Sir Michaels.

“Excuse me young man,” said the old man, “but my name’s Terence Tierney, and I’m considered one of the world’s foremost experts on these matters. Yes, there are some who hold that Sir Henry was not alone but aided in his quest by someone, but as far as I know, and I’ve done more research on this than anyone and therefore should know most, none of that is true. Sir Henry was alone when he……..”

And Sir Michael was at once upon him, grabbing him by the throat and shaking him.

“You lie, knave,” he sputtered. “You lie. Sir Henry was never alone when he faced the mighty Edgar, it was Sir Michael that was by his side and it was Sir Michael that kept the beast busy for Sir Henry but the beast saw through that and killed Sir Henry….”

“Oh yes,” said the professor, who by then had safely removed Sir Michael from his throat and held him vice-like in one arm, “ oh yes, there was a Michael involved, how could I forget, but this Michael was no knight. No, he was but a humble tavern-boy, who was so overcome with admiration for the courageous Sir Henry that he decided to be his squire. It was a very Don Quixote—Sancho Panza sort of arrangement, though I don’t know if Sir Henry did lash out at windmills……..”

“Sir Henry, what is this madman talking about? Who is Don whoever? And please tell him, please tell him Sir Henry, that Sir Michael was indeed a knight, that he was indeed as courageous as Sir Henry, you, were. Tell this ignorant madman that if you will, Sir Henry. Oh, Sir Henry, don’t just stand there thinking like Socrates, sir Henry. Do something, tell this man about Sir Michael’s final hours, about what Edgar did to him…..”

And the professor dropped the boy.

“Edgar you say. That’s the dragon’s name, but no one knows it but me. So how do you know of it, kid? Speak.”

Sir Michael landed a punch on the Professor’s belly and it was hard enough that Tierney had to hold himself and make a face of pain.

“ I will not be ordered around to do anything by anyone except My Lord or My God,” so said Sir Michael while Professor still held his stomach.

“But,” said Professor Tierney, in a very painfully contrived sort of voice, “ how do you know about Edgar? Please, tell me.”

“Ah, that’s better,” said Sir Michael, “ that’s paying a knight the proper respect he deserves, and as for your question, I know who Edgar is because I was defeated by him. What’s in a name, I saw him face to face, I stared into his eyes, and he respected me enough that he didn’t burn me straightaway with his hot breath…”