The Dragon's Back Trilogy Read online

  The Flying Eagle had rounded an outward curve in the steep side of the Dragon and now steered toward the floating docks and the Town securely built on the solid ground beyond. These did not concern Jason – they were substantial and offered a sense of security.

  However, on their immediate left, what had once been a considerable cove had been filled with man-made flotsam that swayed up and down with the rolling waves of the Bay. Wooden platforms, some fashioned of finished planks, others little more than driftwood rafts, had been strung together to cover the inlet, totally obscuring the face of the Bay. On this rolling man-made extension of the Mainland, lived an entire floating community, suspended above the infinite depths of the cold black water. Board, stick, and thatch had been woven together to form a crowded hodgepodge of dull-colored rustic huts and small low-built cottages. Seemingly unconcerned women hung their wash on fiber ropes stretched between the low housetops. Little children laughed and played childish games, running through the narrow alleys which remained between their makeshift homes, showing no care for the certain death that lay just below their scurrying, unshod little feet.

  "Hold on there, lad." replied the bard with a voice filled with kindness. "You really are one for asking questions, aren't you?” He tied off the halyard line he had been using to reef the mainsail, before turning to his student, “I agree with you that the 'Floaters', as they call themselves, are living an incredibly dangerous lifestyle, but my reasons may be somewhat different than yours. The people who live out on the floating village are the families of the men who work on the tower-bridge. They are all members of a large sect that believes they can forge their own passage to the Gryphon's Land by the efforts of their own hands.”

  Swordsign from the silent Captain directed his talking mate all the way to the stern of the craft to throw out a heavy line with a drogue anchor attached. This large cloth bucket would further slow the forward momentum of the boat.

  As he worked the bard continued his instructions, “The men live in so much constant danger, suspended above the dark waters as they labor on the bridge day in and day out, that I suppose they have been desensitized to that danger and see no problem in raising their families in similar conditions. The women and children show their support for their menfolk by living on borrowed land, floating on the Bay. Their religion is their work and their work is their religion.”

  Kaleb took that opportunity to once again break his self-imposed silence with a comment ringing with sarcasm, “And I thought you Swimmers were a strange lot…”

  "Actually, these people do call themselves ‘Swimmers’,” replied Nathan, now addressing both boys as he moved toward the bow. “Their whole premise, however, is based in falsehood for, as your GrandSire has pointed out, they are trying to do what the Gryphon's Son already accomplished. Those of us who have followed Him to become true Swimmers know beyond a doubt that He has already built us a bridge, and we don't need to take any 'Leap of Faith' off the end of it to know we're going to make it to the other side.”

  The bard readied another line as the Pascan Captain deftly steered the vessel alongside one of the floating docks. “These Floaters, however, wrongly consider themselves Swimmers simply because they live their lives floating over the Bay. But let one of those wooden contrivances, they've built their lives on, start to break apart or sink, and then listen to them holler for help! Just because someone plays around on the eternal depths, doesn't mean he's fit to swim them. Yes, Jason and Kaleb, what they're doing here is very dangerous. And all the sadder is their lot, for, unknown to them, in the day when the Gryphon roars, this will be the first place in all of Dragonsback to sink beneath the waves."

  Nathan threw one end of the line to a waiting dockhand.

  "What do you mean, 'the day when the Gryphon roars'?" Jason asked, his curiosity catching on the mysterious phrase.

  The boat lightly bumped into the dock and the bard pushed past the boys as he answered, "Oh, that's a long lesson best kept for another time, but briefly, the song says that the Gryphon's Son, my Swimmer King, will return to Dragonsback some day. When He does, this whole mess," and he extended his arm in a sweep that encompassed not only the Floaters village but the entire rising bulk of the Mainland above them, "(even to the top of Dragonshead) will sink into the bottomless sea, to disappear forever. As one of the First Fishermen said so long ago:

  What kind of life should you now live?

  What kind of person be,

  When all these things shall pass away,

  To sink beneath the Sea." *5

  Quickly Nathan secured the stern of the Flying Eagle to the dock, drew in the sea anchor, and then used his white bone sword to salute the Pascan priest. Jason caught some of the signs in the silent tribute that again made an apology and indicated no charge for his services. The Captain, apparently still upset, offered only the briefest of farewell salutes before turning to make an entry in his log.

  The bard also turned, offered a smile to his pupil, and with a smooth leap, cleared the side of the vessel and landed lightly on the dock. That floating structure absorbed the suddenly added weight of the solidly built singer by undulating up and down in an alarming manner.

  Jason hesitated as he visually compared the relative safety of the boat to the moving dock in front of him. But then, he thought, if I stay in the boat, I’ll never get to explore the town or feel solid land under my feet again!

  Even from the deck, Jason could see that the tiny port village of Mann's Pointe was a bustling place. It stood in stark and exciting contrast to the floating shantytown behind them. Like a multi-stranded anklet of polished wooden beads, the town circled the base of the huge tower, filling almost every remaining spot on the narrow peninsula with all manner of interesting shops, taverns, and inns. Everything else that wasn’t filled with towers or buildings hosted a sea of humanity in constant motion.

  Between Jason and the new adventure before him lay one final obstacle – the huge wooden platforms that formed the docks jutting out like giant moving fingers from the peninsular forward right-hand leg or arm of the Dragon. Onto these gently swaying structures, Jason took a tentative step.

  “It’s all right, lad,” said Thaddeus with a knowing wink as he joined his grandson on the salt-whitened planking. “They actually ‘ave small boats an’ sealed drums under the docks t’ make sure they won’t go nowhere. They wouldn’t want t’ lose none o’ their precious cargo!”

  “GrandSire, the only cargo I’m interested in right now is the bundle that’s holding up my pack! And the sooner that package is safely ashore, the better I’ll like it! These docks are so crowded – does anyone ever get knocked off by mistake?”

  The burly dockworker who had helped secure their boat, on hearing these words, gave Jason a withering look that could have melted scaline, so the youth quickly changed the subject. “There sure is a lot of interesting things going on here!” he said with enthusiasm and the man turned to other tasks.

  Jason used the next moments to better examine his “interesting” surroundings. The Harbor around him currently hosted over three handsworth of the black-hulled Pascal vessels, tied to the broad floating docks. Cargo from all over Dragonsback was being unloaded or loaded. Making the commerce even more precarious, the poorer craftsmen, merchants, and food vendors (who couldn't pay the premium price for land in the town) had set up makeshift booths right on the swaying timbers of the floating platforms to which the boats were moored and were loudly engaged in hawking their wares. What with the stevedores, sellers, pilgrims, passengers, and priests all pursuing conflicting, divergent interests in the same location at the same time, Jason faced the most confusing mass of humanity he had ever seen.

  Now I see why the mariner-priests use sword sign to communicate, he thought with a laugh. He turned back in time to see his GrandSire pass on instructions to the Captain: THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. WE WILL RETURN IN FOUR DAYS.

  As a colorful swirl of people confronted his eyes, Jason filled his lungs with
another type of strange confusion: the ever-changing kaleidoscopic smells on the dock were enough to make his head spin. Churned by the salty spoon of the sea air, the aromatic flavors of the port assaulted him so rapidly that he could hardly identify one before another replaced it: sweet pastries from a bakery; sweat from workmen battling the noon-time sun (their only shade, the heavy bundles on their dripping backs); scented spices and incense from the pack of a passing priest; manure from caged animals being loaded into the next boat; tear-raising smoke from a hundred different fires burning dung, or wood, or tight-bound wisps of dried grass; and always and everywhere, as a prevailing undercurrent, the pungent reality of fish; dried fish, fresh fish, or salted fish so thick in the air that he could taste it with his eyes closed.

  These are the sights and sounds and smells of life, thought the youth excitedly. And moisture dampened his eyes as he added, and of freedom!

  His GrandSire obviously had a different opinion of the town. Turning his back on the still saluting Captain of the Flying Eagle, the old carver quickly called out above the encroaching din, "Let us be gone from here, for the Gryphon's footprints are trampled on and muddied over in this place and I doubt they'd even hear His voice iffin He stood on this dock and roared!”

  Nathan, the bard, laid his hand on his old friend's shoulder, and Jason recognized in the meeting of their eyes a mild rebuke from the singer. Then the Heartlander sadly shook his age-whitened head, lowered his gaze, and silently turned to lead the party through the obstacle-filled passage toward the shore.

  Solid ground, at last, thought the youth as his feet left the disconcerting swaying of the docks behind. Unaware of its presence until that very moment, fear, as a living thing, had cloaked his shoulders and darkened his heart since the first moment he had entered the boat. Suddenly free of its weight, Jason consciously marked that step of transition. As his invisible burden fell off, silently dropping behind him into the water that had woven its fabric, it dissolved and sank, now inert and helpless, beneath the offending waves.

  Jason noticed a change in his brother as well. His surliness, no longer being fed by the waters of the Bay, seemed to soften a little when it touched the sun-baked hardness of the Road. Jason could tell that something still deeply troubled his silent older sibling. However, Kaleb no longer acted like he wanted to instantly take up thorns against his adult companions. Jason could read his brother's signs even without the use of a sword: what Kaleb really wanted was to be left alone. That's an improvement and I guess it will have to do, for now, Jason concluded, promising himself that he would talk with Kaleb the first chance they got.

  He could not share his brother's malaise when the road to his future stood ready at his feet. We're back on Dragonsback, at last, he thought with a smile, relaxing into a comfortable pace behind the others. There's so much to see and so much to learn, and I've only just begun! As a bard, I'll get to travel all over the Mainland and see the great cities, climb the mountains, explore the River Valley, and meet all the different kinds of people that live from north to south!

  Viewing the port city of Mann’s Pointe from dock level provided an education all of its own. Thaddeus led their small band up the crowded, cobbled road toward what appeared to be the entrance to the tower bridge.

  “GrandSire?” he asked, leaning close to the white-haired man. “Do we have to go on the bridge to get to the top of the Dragon? I sure hope we don’t have to climb up that tower!”

  “No, Laddie,” replied the carver. “We’ll not be a visitin’ that bridge while I have anything t’ say about it! No, It’s jus’ that they built the entrance t’ their bridge right at the entrance t’ the Path. Guess they figured it’d get more people t’ see their handiwork. A ‘visual tax’ I call it! ‘Tis the price y’ gotta pay t’ climb the Dragon.”

  Having said his say, it appeared to Jason that his GrandSire would much rather hurry through the town than talk about it, so the youth again let his eyes and ears feast on the visual and auditory banquet spread around him.

  With a solid, cobbled road under their feet, the docks and floating shantytown were to their left. Colorful, apparently prosperous, two and three-story shops lined the road to their right, close-packed together. Timber, stone, and shingle were each painted in gregarious matching hues which seemed purposely chosen for the outlandish contrast they struck with the colors applied to the neighboring businesses.

  Jason had often pictured in his mind, from accounts that he had read, the bright kaleidoscope of colors that must make up a field of mountain wildflowers. He wondered now if this visual riot did not mimic those in some comic fashion. Each shop also displayed a large hanging sign which bore the crest or symbol of the service, trade, or product found within. People, whose garments seemed dull and commonplace in comparison, crowded the street. Briefly, an unwanted picture from his past flashed into his mind: tall pastel buildings of subdued island coral, like precarious cliffs whose feet were awash with riotous swirling rivers of brightly colored humanity. He remembered little of his infancy on the Mainland, but obviously, there would be many contrasts to what he now assumed was normal though a complete lack of competition.

  The sudden sound of loud moaning and crying interrupted his thoughts. It came from the open doorway of one of the businesses on their right. As Jason turned to look, a long procession of black-draped people (men, women, and children) issued out from the wide portal. Between them, they carried a smaller replica of one of the black-hulled boats of the Pascal priests, about one-and-a-half or two manheights in length. As those who surrounded the small craft were at last free of the confines of the shop, they gently lowered their burden to the rough stone of the road, whereupon several helped raise and set its proportional mast and black sail. As soon as the rigging of the sail had been secured, the wailing of those around rose to even greater levels of pandemonious panoply.

  The mourners (for Jason perceived that was what they were) then lifted the miniature boat once more and proceeded up the road toward the entrance of the Tower-Bridge. Out of respect for the dead, the fine-dressed travelers that had previously flooded the thoroughfare, squeezed to the sides to allow an unobstructed passage. But, like waves in the wake of that passing boat, they soon flooded back in to reclaim their original place in the pedestrian sea.

  The course of the black boat had another effect entirely on the more drably-clothed residents of Mann’s Pointe scattered as majority through the throng: instead of moans and groans, its wake invoked in each of them a sea of tears and waves of ever-loudening shrieks of pain and loss.

  Jason leaned close to the bard and shouted to him above the din, "This must have been someone they all loved very much if they mourn his passage so!"

  "Nay, child," responded the singer, "this man is no different than any other to those who dwell here. Those who have no hope, only self-made speculations, can find no comfort in the passing of life. They act like this for any who sail this street. In fact, the chief living of this city is caring for the dead. They are brought here from all points north and south to be disembarked from the end of yon bridge."

  "The bridge is for the dead?" asked the incredulous youth. "Why would they build a bridge for the dead and not the living?"

  "For the most part, very few that are alive would dare jump off the cloud-shrouded end of that man-made monstrosity. Yet none here would deny the already dead the privilege of being launched as close to the Gryphon's Land as their money can take them. The trouble is, getting closer to the Gryphon's Land doesn't make you a citizen. It's the same as thinking that sailing in a boat will make you a fish!"

  Jason was thoughtfully silent in the noisy crowd for several moments, before asking, "Are there any people living who have tried to find this land you speak of by jumping into the clouds at the end of the bridge?"

  "Do you see the bright red shop on the right, up there closer to the entrance to the Bridge?" asked the bard.

  "Do you mean the one whose sign has a dragon entwined on the walking sti
ck?"

  "Yes, that's the one," Nathan responded. "Can you make out the lettering on the sign from here?"

  Jason was quick to reply (after all, he wanted his teacher to know he had very keen eyes), "Of course I can, it says, 'JUMPIN' JACK'S ESCORT SERVICE'. Why? What's so important about that place?"

  The bard was uncharacteristically silent for a moment as if he needed to formulate his words with special care, "Of all the errors found in Mann's Pointe, the ones represented by that one shop are probably the most dangerous. Its owner helps still living men and women find their way to the end of the Bridge and then assists them in jumping off."

  "Why, isn't that murder? How can he be allowed to do that?" snapped Jason, his eyes burning with indignant fire.

  "The people he offers his services to are all very sick or just sick of living," Nathan responded. "They believe that by walking (or crawling) off the end of the Bridge they will end their suffering (and many people have come to share their views). It is even argued that if a person wants to use the Bridge, it should be his or her right to do so. The conflict arises over the use of escort services to accomplish the task. There is much debate in the thornhouses over this controversial issue. Should Jack have the right to help these poor people do what they want to do anyway?"

  "Well, I suppose if they are old and sick, then maybe it's not so bad, after all," responded Jason thoughtfully.

  Nathan was suddenly loud, almost angry, in his adamant response, "If you truly believe that, then that orphanage has done more damage to you than I thought! Jumpin' Jack is the enemy of all who love the Gryphon and the life He gave us! How can I help you understand? Let's see... I know! How long do you plan on keeping the robe you're wearing now?"