Into the Fire

Daffyd awoke suddenly, a yell finding voice in his throat before his brain even had time to register he still drew air as he shuffled backward in the shadowy gloom, squinting in the fuliginous darkness and desperately trying to figure out when he was. There was a smell of wood and smoke in the air, and something else he couldn’t identify, then panic filled him as he now worried perhaps the dragon had actually swallowed him whole.

Looking around the darkened area, he found what appeared to be pieces of branches and sizable bits of cloth. Keeping low, he moved throw the darkness, foot striking something metallic and causing it to ringing out over the stone floor as it skittered through the darkness.

Fearing at any moment something horrific might emerge from the deep shadows, pouncing on him and rending him asunder, he crouched down and remained absolutely still. A short distance ahead, around a corner there was some light, bringing him a small measure of relief. Though still cautious, he quickened his pace, moving toward the light, hoping beyond hope, he could get some understanding of what was happening. As he drew nearer what he thought must certainly be the mouth of the dragon’s lair, he remained close to the wall, still shrouded in the shadows as he tried to discern what he saw.

The mouth of the lair opened into what appeared to be a fairly spacious cavern beyond, constructed out of smooth stone blocks, made black by soot. In the center of the rectangular space was an enormous structure that looked to be made from iron, four angled legs reaching upward, each as thick as his waist and three times his height, supporting eight similarly sized cross beams that extended a little beyond the legs to either side but not touching any of the walls. The right wall appeared to be a vast curtain made of chain links parted in the middle stretching up out of his field of view. There was a fine white ash covering the floor.

Shuddering, he steeled himself and crept cautiously forward toward the opening. He heard the sound of a woman’s voice, words indistinct somewhere in the distance beyond the opening, while his eyes revealed the nature of the interior of the large cavernous room with the metal structure. It was a great fireplace. Blinking a few times, he shook his head. Surely I must have died and this is the afterlife. His heart pounded, so fierce and loud he thought it might explode out of his chest. What madness could this be? Reaching down, he cruelly pinched the flesh inside his right forearm, hard enough to make himself wince. Dead yet still I feel? Surely this must be some trick of his dying mind? What else could it be?

Stepping out from a gap in the stones and into the basin of the fireplace, he looked through the metal curtain at the room beyond, his jaw dropping open as if the hinge had failed with what he saw. Seated at an enormous simply constructed chesterfield of fabric and wood was a pretty woman garbed in a lightly colored linen dress hemmed with simple green colored embroidery, upper body covered by a dark colored laced up bodice, except she was gigantic. From his veiled perspective, she appeared fairly young of face, her skin smooth and fresh. She possessed golden hair, braided and piled atop her head, exposing a smooth slender neck. More amazing was the dragon curled up in her lap the way he had seen some noble women hold cats. The dragon was the size he remembered, but the woman, how could she be so incredibly big. Even the Loch Narin giant, if the legends be true, was only a hand over nine feet tall and this woman dwarfed that many times over. How could such a thing be?

The immense woman made a sympathetic face to the little dragon curled up in her lap, “Oh little one, you’re hurt,” she commented, using an old dialect he recognized as the language called the One Tongue, as she tenderly stroked the underside of the beast. The creature made a trilling sound, stretching its neck with each trumpeted vocalization.

Rising to her bare feet, cradling the dragon in the crook of her right arm the way a mother might hold a child, she walked to his right and vanished from sight, the sounds of her footfalls heavy and receding as she departed. Standing, she must easily have been a hundred feet in height, if not more, he thought. Shaking his head, he involuntarily took a step backward, the very notion of being trodden upon filled him with dread.

Reaching up, he placed his fingertips to either side of his head, massaging his temples. What madness is upon me? Maybe I did fall and landed squarely on my head, scrambling my poor brain? With hesitant steps, he moved to the front of the fireplace, passing through the parted curtain to stand on the hearth and survey the rest of the room. From his perspective, to his immediate right was an enormous metal stand holding a half dozen split logs, each piece wider than any tree he had ever seen before. The walls around the room appeared to be rough-hewn wood sloping inward toward a peak at the ceiling far above his head. There was a sturdy looking table to the left side of the chesterfield and another chair and table near the corner to his left. At the far wall was a single door, opened to reveal another room beyond. He had seen similar construction in some of the larger cities during his service to Sir George, but never anything on this scale.

Walking out to the edge of the hearth, he leaned over the drop and looked down, the distance easily thrice his height. Beneath the hearth were tightly fitted shaped stone tiles around the floor of the fireplace, covered with what appeared to be some type of thick carpet extending out to where the floor became polished wood.

Turning around, he glanced back into the fireplace and then out again into the room, mind reeling and still trying to make some sense of the impossibility before him.

He chuckled out loud, a nervous sound as he examined the evidence in his head. For all intents and purposes, this appeared to be a home to some giant girl and she kept a dragon as a pet in a den built inside the crack in the stones of her fireplace.

Screwing his eyes tightly closed, scrunching up his face, he opened them suddenly, hoping the action would dispel what he saw. It didn’t.

The story of the boy who sold his cow for a handful of magic beans sprang to mind. Is this where I am? Some land beyond the clouds populated by giants? Brought here by the dragon? To what end?