"How Great Thou Art: Part 1" by Anne Lee Zimmerman

“There is a legend told to every hatchling, about the traitorous Firesand, and his many punishments and transgressions against all of his kind and his kin. There is a legend told to every human youngling about the virtuous Firesand and the many benefits that he presented to others at the cost of his own life. Therefore, a profound puzzlement sneaks into the hearts of both kinds, each seeking out to find one of the other to see if the legend is true.”

The great, sand-colored dragon coughed a few times, and smoke hotter than the desert sun poured from his mouth and further blackened the opposite wall. He was very large, and very old. Scales were cracked, and held little bits of sand, further enhancing his tawny appearance. “Therefore, if you seek the real Firesand, you will have to sift through all of the false ones first, as many of the ones who desired his fame took on his name.” He chuckled a bit at his own unintentional rhyme, thus creating more black smoke and making one of the apprentices cough uncontrollably.

There were actually quite a few humans gathered in the dragon’s lair that day, a transgression that in earlier days would never have been countenanced by the elderly desert lizard, but now had to be tolerated. They all had the blessing of some sort of human goddess and the orders to collect the particular story of Firesand for some sort of archive. Anyway, the amount of effort needed to kill one of them would probably push him the rest of the way to death’s door. The historian knew it; the dragon knew it, so therefore they both dealt with each other for the time being.

“Tell us of the original. That is the reason we came to you, wise one. You knew him.” The young male historian gave a little bow of deference to the great sandy beast. “Actually, I heard that you were once known as his soul, and that he entrusted all of his early memories to you right before he went to live among the humans.”

If dragons were able to show emotion, the historian could have sworn that a grimace of pain crossed his face. “Yes,” the dragon’s voice rumbled, “I have his memory. So that’s why you came, is it? To raid the mind of a poor, decrepit lizard and take one of the few precious possessions he has left?”

The historian gave another bow. “No, I simply want to read it. Then I will leave it in your mind, yes?”

A faint rumbling sound started somewhere deep in the dragon’s chest and increased in intensity until even the dirt under the humans’ feet vibrated with it. The apprentices seemed on the verge of flight, but their master just gave a crooked half-smile and assured them telepathically that it was simply dragon laughter.

“So we have a deal!” the dragon announced triumphantly.

“Yes.”

“So be it.”

Dragon eye met human eye; dragon mind bore down on human mind and tried to break it, but the historian was wiser than that. The thoughts yielded willingly to the dragon’s probe, and ran away like water, all open for scrutiny. Then, as quickly as they flowed away, they came back with the force of a tidal wave, breaking through the dragon’s relaxed guard.

“Caedmonashara.” The historian’s voice was little more than a whisper, but the dragon heard him, and felt the speaking of his true name down to the very core of his being. He knew very well how deeply he had been bested. He put himself into a light trance, allowing the unknown man to skim willingly over his memories at leisure.

Good, now the fun begins, the man thought to himself.

Deep in a cave underneath the shifting sands of the desert, Yllaritello broke shell and looked upon the world for the first time. The world he saw was of dripping stalagmites and a pool of water, a resource greater in worth than all of the dragon hordes of the world. That was the first time that he felt The Presence in his mind. The Presence didn’t speak in words. It never did. It only imparted knowledge. Somehow, Yllaritello knew that this would be his cave, to create his horde of human bones and their gold. He was the biggest of his egg-group scattered throughout the area in various caves, the first to break the shell, and he would rule over the area with an outspread wing and proud eye. The Presence sent him an image of sandy-colored dragons, although they were without wings, cowering before him, of his great, steel-colored claws ripping out one of their throats. They don’t matter, The Presence told him, they are as little worms compared to you. More images came of him flying over farms and ripping out more throats and sating his gnawing hunger with sweet, hot blood. Yes, that was what was fitting and good.

All at once he realized that his hunger was completely real, not just a figment of his dreamings. His head swiveled on its long neck, taking in all of the things in the cave. There was not much there, but another egg stood in the corner, and as Yllaritello watched, it rocked minutely, and a miniscule crack appeared along the edge.

Food is in there, The Presence added, good food.

He gave a bestial growl and started waddling on his stumpy newborn legs to the egg. He never got more than halfway, however, because a great snake, tasting the water on the air and thinking the cave deserted, came slithering into the baby dragon’s domain. It never realized its mistake. Long neck tipped with a disproportionately large head shot out and the snake was swallowed whole and into the baby dragon’s empty stomach almost before it stopped breathing.

Thus sated, Yllaritello turned back to the rocking egg, now bearing more cracks than ever. The Presence inside him told him that he should eat whatever was in that egg, but he was no longer hungry. Indeed, his stomach was distended with the weight of the snake, and it pained him considerably. He could not even begin to think of eating anything more.

The movement of the egg increased in frequency and agitation. More cracks appeared, and Yllaritello watched it more out of curiosity than anything else. Finally, all at once, the tan pieces of shell at the top of the egg flew apart, and out poked a large head, followed by a long and sinuous neck. One more spate of rocking, and the rest of the egg crumbled as well, and another sandy dragon flopped out onto the sand, paper-thin wings spreading slowly to dry.

It’s beautiful, Yllaritello thought, my twin. In an instant, he thought over the suggestions made by the Presence. Just the thought of doing such a thing as killing his own brother was unbearable to Yllaritello’s highly-developed mind. He realized at the same time, however, that his brother would desire to kill him for the sake of food. His young muscles sprang into action.

He was the bigger of the two. It was the work of a moment to trap the weak and undernourished hatchling. It was a harder task to find some way to disable him without hurting him. Until then, he was stuck standing on his brother’s wings with his teeth lightly clasping the other’s neck. The hatchling dragon’s soft claws scrambled for purchase on Yllaritello’s polished under-scales, but were unable to do anything to hurt him.

Yllaritello freed his head by pinning his brother’s neck with one forepaw instead. Their eyes met, one gaze calm and black, the other one red with anger. The younger twin was still under the influence of the presence. Yllaritello’s eyes narrowed in sympathy, right before he settled back on his haunches, took a rock in his free forepaw, and smashed it right across his brother’s temple.

***

            He sat there, a freshly-caught cave fish draped over a nearby rock, until his twin woke up.

He could tell the other was in pain. Maybe he had hit him a little too hard, but the idea had been to knock out the presence as well. Yllaritello had hit his head rather hard on the bottom of the pool while catching the cave fish, so he knew that his kind had rather thick skulls. For all he knew, the Presence would never allow his brother to wake up again. That thought frightened him quite a bit.

            This is amazing, he thought, how easily emotions come. It seemed that now another presence was teaching him, but instead of forcing anything on him, it peppered him with possibilities. As soon as he felt fear for his brother, the Thought taught him the danger of having fear like that and doing nothing.

            Good idea.

            Without further ado, the cave fish ended up sailing through the air, straight into his brother’s open and softly snoring mouth, and, with an unpleasant sliding sensation, straight down his throat to the bottom of his empty stomach. Needless to say, that woke his brother up.

            Claws and wings were out, tails were in a good position to club, and teeth were bared, until Yllaritello’s twin realized that he was now alone inside his own head. That thought made him shudder all the way down to the tip of his tail. Then he laid his head at his brother’s feet and spoke his true name in the dragon’s language, the language of the Presence. “Caedmonashara, soul to my rescuer.”

***

            Yllaritello and Caedmonashara. Firesand and his soul. Never was there such a matched set. Firesand was always the leader. He ruled the day just as the Presence had promised him. The twins seldom talked of that time. Firesand actually experienced a deep regret that he had actually listened to it for as long as he did. His soul never shared what he felt on the subject.

            Unlike Firesand, Caedmonashara never chose an original name for himself. They both agreed that they should not use the names that they had intuitively acquired at their births. The presence had said that the names carried a special sort of power, and should never be told to anyone else. Because Caedmonashara had told his brother his true name, they were eternally bound to each other, with Caedmonashara the lesser of the pair. Therefore, he never named himself because, for all intensive purposes, he was another Firesand, only diminished. He was Firesand’s soul.

***

            Unlike his soul, Firesand was never content to believe that they were the only intelligent beings in the area. He had tried to communicate to the fish, the lizards, and the desert birds, but none of them ever answered. That was how he figured out that they were all safe to eat, while cactuses and those colorful toads were not. Their continued silence prompted him to test how much they liked his stomach. Well, they were being rude, after all.

            Each day, as he got faster, stronger, and bigger, he flew in increasingly larger circles, keeping the cave as the center. He was about the size of a horse (another species that made very good eating) when his wandering way took him to a large pool of water. It was the first he had seen outside of his cave, and the beauty of it glittering in the sun drew his attention like a magnet. A couple of trees grew around the oasis and a small herd of well-fed horses were grazing on a patch of hardy grass nearby. Well, he didn’t need a second invitation.

            Wings folded tight against his sides as he fell into a dive like a falcon. It made a terrific noise, but he came so fast that the horses had no chance to move before he had one of them clutched in his claws. He caught himself with his wings in a great thunderclap of displaced air and flew away, or at least tried to, burdened with his kill.

            Needless to say, he didn’t get far. The horse was about his size. What did you expect?

            That was when everything got interesting. A soft, bipedal creature came running from the brush around the pool, face and hands dripping. Evidently he had been enjoying the surplus of fresh water. Firesand dropped the freely-bleeding throat of the horse and watched in astonishment as the bipedal squawked something at him, grabbed a long stick from somewhere behind a tree, and ran at him, waving it fiercely. This was, by far, strangest behavior he had ever seen from an animal, especially one so obviously unprotected as this one was. How in the world did its species survive if they, as a whole, had the nasty habit of running at obviously fanged, clawed, and armored, carnivorous creatures armed with nothing more than a stick?

            Then again… Firesand tilted his head to the side and looked more closely. This animal was certainly trying to communicate. The squawkings made that plain enough.  closed his eyes in concentration. He thought he could distinctly hear the word “dragon” repeated over and over. Also, this being’s mind was almost sizzling with all sorts of emotions. What was more, these emotions were spilling over into the outside world in an unpracticed kind of way. The still-stampeding horses had picked them up, and had redoubled their speed.

            This was Firesand’s intelligent being. He couldn’t kill it.

            Stop, my friend! He called out to it mind to mind.

            Astonishingly, the bipedal stopped.

            Then it responded: What are you? And underneath that simple query lay more than a little surprise, but also the fear and acceptance of ignorance. And Firesand knew what the bipedal was, and knew of his kind.

            They talked for hours or days, and Firesand ended up liking the bipedal, the man, more and more. His mind was not as simple as a dragon’s. In it were many locked rooms, and he had no True Name for himself, but rather a name for each room and idea that existed in his mind. All of the tiny rooms were grouped under one heading of Samuel. That is what he said his friends and family called him.

            Samuel was a herder. His family had paid a huge sum of money to get him this job in the first place, but he was good at his job, so now he was sending money back home in gratitude. Firesand was confused at first with his concern about money. The he remembered what the Presence had shown him, a cave full of bones and treasure.

            Yeah. Yeah, my people have that problem too.

            There are others? Samuel seemed to not pick up on the dragon’s concern over greed.

            Yes. There are others.

            Are they all like you?

            No. If you find another dragon, never talk to him.

            Why?

            Someone else controls them. They are not like me.

            Like a demon? Are they evil?

            What is a demon? What is evil? It was now Firesand’s turn to be confused.

            Evil is… A profound silence, mixed with confusion, permeated the other mind. It is bad. He finally completed rather lamely. And the demons serve that badness.

            I think I know what you are talking about. The Presence is Evil. Does this exist in your people?

            Only in some.

            Does it exist in you?

            Never.

            Do you hate it?

            Of course!

            Come with me.

            WHAT?

            I want to free my people of the Evil. When you tell them about how you live, with the choice between good and evil, then they will see that they should start thinking for themselves.

            Firesand... I’d like to, but I can’t. My family is depending upon me and the income I bring in. I would dearly love to help you, but I can’t.

            There is always a choice.

            There is seldom the freedom to make that choice.

            Samuel slept that nigh guarded by Firesand, and then moved on in the morning.

            “If you still want a companion, Firesand, there is a great number of my people living in a city almost due east of here. Follow the sun in the morning. There is first a river with a great bridge running over it. That is how you know that you are getting close. Most will be afraid, however, and those who are not will probably refuse you like I did.” He spoke this out loud, not mind to mind. Because Firesand had spent so much time in contact with his thoughts, however, that he could understand him.

            Firesand did not care about the last part of Samuel’s advice. All he could think about was the infinite amount of hope that the conversation had given him. ‘There is always a choice.’ On the way back to the cave, he flew higher and faster than he ever had before.

            “Caedmonashara, we are moving out of here!”