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“For 118 generations, the enchanted sword Echbalder was passed from Pendragon to Pendragon. The sword became as a symbol, a beacon of hope and peace. Then, upon the eve of the Long Night, the sword was lost.”
-History of the Greater Continent
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Chapter 4:
Friends
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#4.1 – Monday, the 9th day of the 9th month…
Away from the group, Scarlet stood before a statue, mimicking its pose.
Most of the statues were poised with weapons drawn and striking heroic stances. This one looked different, his weapons sat around his feet, while he stood, palms turned up, arms outstretched.
A series of sharp giggles and hushed voices caught Scarlet’s attention. She didn’t turn around, choosing to continue gazing up at the statue with starry eyes. The giggle belonged to Scarlet’s best friend, Bethany Summers. They hadn’t spoken in a while, not since the fall soccer season ended and Scarlet didn’t sign up for swim team in the spring*.
“What a stupid nerd,” Bethany said.
“Didn’t I see her at your birthday party?” another girl asked.
“Pssh, I guess?” Bethany snorted. “She always used to bring really expensive gifts, then like the last few years she got me these weird thick books about old dead people. Told mom to stop inviting her.”
“Solid,” the other girl said.
“Look at the way she stands,” Bethany whispered plenty loud enough to be heard. “She thinks some old statue of a dead guy is just the greatest thing ever. You should have heard her at swim practice, wouldn’t even shut up while doing laps.” Bethany paused to snort. “Bet she thinks she’s so cool for spouting all that stuff about rocks. Girl has no idea how freaking lame she is.”
The words made Scarlet shiver, even on the warm summer morning. Did Bethany really see her that way? Scarlet was no stranger to being made fun of. Her frizzy hair, stick-like build, and tendency to carry around armloads of very old books didn’t exactly engender positive attention.
Scarlet remained motionless, feeling her eyes tighten. Bethany only lived two streets over, and somehow that meant taking a different route to school. But they were together in school, in most of the same classes no less. What changed?
Scarlet turned around slowly and rubbed her eyes. Bethany’s conversation stopped abruptly as she saw Scarlet looking at her, and the girl forced a fake smile and waved.
Despite every ounce of self-control Scarlet could muster, she began to grind her teeth as she felt her pulse quicken. Chin raised, she spoke to Bethany. “I thought you were my best friend.”
“Since when? No. Like, I think your mom knows my mom, or something?” Bethany’s eyes widened slightly as she looked down and away.
“You ate dinner at my house!” Scarlet said.
“Once. Maybe a couple times?” Bethany grimaced as she turned and started walking.
It was at least four times, Scarlet knew. All in the past couple of years, and there were probably others she couldn’t remember. She just sort of showed up and Scarlet’s mom let her in. Scarlet would talk to Bethany, and she’d smile and nod. Is that all their relationship had ever been?
The other girl, seeming to recognize Scarlet for the first time, cocked her head to the side. “Oh, yeah, you’re the girl with no belly button who always blathers about weird stuff and people marrying dragons. That sounds creepy.” She turned to follow Bethany.
Feeling her face grow warm and the pressure behind her eyes build, Scarlet checked that the other two girls were no longer facing her, before covering her eyes. She felt the tears coming and began to cast about desperately for somewhere to cry.
The back of the park butted up against a steep, sheer granite cliff that stretched up into the sky. Since she was closest to it, Scarlet decided this would have to do, and began walking as quickly as she could.
She slipped on sprinkler-wet cobbles and banged her knee badly on a worn cenotaph, just barely stifling the cry of pain. Knowing that once she began, she could not stop, Scarlet broke into a run.
Her breath came in short gasps when she saw it. A little alcove, a concealed entrance to some gardener’s path. As with ships and storms, any port would do, and Scarlet ducked into this just as she began to chock back little sobs.
One side of the alcove contained an arched doorway blocked by a rusted gate. The bars were easily wide enough for a girl of Scarlet’s inconsiderable stature to slip through, and with classmates still milling about everywhere, anything to get her further away was a blessing.
She made the desperate bid. If any other girl were in Scarlet’s situation, her friends would probably crowd around her and shield her from the prying eyes of her classmates.
But apparently Scarlet didn’t have any friends, and so had to rely on the stone walls to keep her secrets. The other side of the gate held a steep path, which Scarlet began to sprint up. Wracking sobs mixed with ragged breaths as her legs pounded against the ancient stonework.
It wasn’t often that Scarlet found herself driven to tears. She hated to cry and avoided confrontation as much as she could. As a girl who spent most of her time inside her own head, she didn’t usually need to let her emotions have reign. Now, though, she just wanted more than anything for it to be over.
Hitting switchback after switchback, she ran, until the point of exhaustion. She could feel the wind through her torn pant leg, the wet of blood as it ran down from her scraped knee. The pain, such as it was, did not hurt as much as what she felt inside.
No matter what feelings raged, she always kept that one corner of her mind, the part she could never escape. She couldn’t turn it off, even after being emotionally eviscerated. Her analytical mind saw how the steep path had a sharp step every five or six feet.
Still thinking, still analyzing, still noticing, just like it did while she lay on the bed in the Enclave. Not an ordinary path, that corner of Scarlet’s mind surmised, this one let war horses climb a steep gradient quickly. No one built something like this for any old gardener.
When Scarlet tripped for the third time, she knew she had to stop. She came to a hard landing against one side of the path, grabbing hold of a rusted metal railing so old it crumbled to dust in her hands.
She ended up legs splayed out in front of her, back against the stone work. ‘Undignified’, Scarlet would call it, were she not so out of breath from the climb. With no one at all in sight, Scarlet pulled up the hem of her shirt and used it to dry her eyes and face. Letting the garment fall back down, she took several deep breaths and surveyed the space around her.
In the summer, Scarlet always went to Dragoon Lancer Fantasy Day Camp†, where she learned many useful tricks. Among them: if your heart is beating too fast, inhale once, shallowly, and hold your breath. That will slow it down right away.
Calmed some, she took stock of herself and shuddered at the mess she’d made. Her olive green cargo pants were torn at the knee, and her black tanktop soaked with sweat. She knew at once she would need a good while before she could dare rejoin her classmates.
Pulling herself up to her feet, Scarlet pressed a hand into her side, which ached from the sudden run. Using another Lancer trick, she quickly bent and touched her toes a few times to clear the cramp, then stood to her full height, and looked around.
When she set out, she hadn’t cared where she was going as long as it included ‘away’ in the description. Cut into the sheer cliff-side, the path roped back and forth, overhanging itself and sometimes passing through shallow tunnels as it climbed rapidly above the valley floor. Approaching the edge, Scarlet stood on her tip-toes to peer over the great stone railing, and looked out from many stories above her classmates.
Though she didn’t have a mirror, Scarlet knew acutely that her cheeks must be flushed and her eyes red. Being seen like that would be just as bad as being seen crying, so she needed to wait here and recover.
But, then, it slowly dawned on Scarlet exactly where ‘here’ was, and her sadness gave way to elation. The path on which she trespassed traversed from the monument park on the valley floor, to the hidden cleft high above where the actual Slayer Dragons tombs of the old Alliance era+ lay.
She would have to wait a while, either way. It was a simple choice: sit here, feeling sorry for herself; or keep climbing, and come face to face with her real heroes.
“Clearly,” Scarlet spoke aloud. “I would be stupid NOT to do this!” And took off again.
Switchback after switchback, she ran, fueled now by curiosity and delight, having forgotten completely the encounter with her once-friend. According to her books, The Valley of Sleeping Dragons had been one of the best-kept gardens ever, with marble paths snaking all throughout. But since the late Sixth Age SS before the Long Night, they didn’t open it to visitors. It must be in complete shambles by now.
Winded to the point of choking, Scarlet rounded the final corner and stopped. Weeds, dislodged paving stones, and overgrown trees… were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a lawn of neatly trimmed grass and perfectly shaped hedges spread right to the edge of the cliff. A path stretched out in front of Scarlet, winding its way under manicured shade trees that let just the right amount of beautiful summer sunshine fall through them. That the tranquil garden, locked away from the prying eyes of visitors, was still being kept, told Scarlet much. She knew, now, that it had never been for tourists at all. A memorial kept for the people in it, not the people looking at it.
Now moving at a somber walk, Scarlet followed the path through the picturesque garden. Only grass and trees, no flowers here, with statues and shrines to honor the fallen Slayer Dragons themselves. Every one of them from the First through Sixth Ages was honored here, a period of nearly six thousand years. But burials stopped in the mid Fifth Age. The actual tombs were well hidden, their true locations known only to a handful. By now, Scarlet thought, probably no one knew exactly where the oldest parts of the cemetery lay.
Scarlet remembered reading how in the old era when the valley was open, visitors were warned to stay off the grass, since you couldn’t tell when you were desecrating a grave.
Of course, what Scarlet read and what Scarlet did were not the same thing. Within minutes of beginning her walk, she went running off to the side of practically every other paving stone, searching each crevice and off-shaped hillock in the hopes of finding a tomb entrance. Just the entrance, she told herself, just the doorway to see where one of those great heroes lay resting.
Jayce Spearlock P, the Pendragon after whom Scarlet named her cat, had his statue in a sort of grotto. Built into a small cliff, Scarlet found it unusual. The escarpment stuck out and formed a sheer wall, while the grassy hillsides climbed up casually on either side.
She touched the wall, searching for any sign the stone had been worked. Dragging her hand along, Scarlet took a few steps to one side, then trod back in the opposite direction, exploring all around the curious mound.
And then the ground gave way beneath her feet.
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End:
Chapter Four
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