From Atop the Dragonpit
Don’t throw stones down the dragonpit.
Every child in Henroth knew the old warning, but Barthwin didn’t care. Why should he? For every child in Henroth also knew that there were no dragons.
He hucked another stone. It arced, pausing for one brief moment to cut a gray hole into a white sky, and then plummeted down into the darkening chasm below. Barthwin listened to it plink against the rocks as it cascaded downward, the echoes growing fainter and fainter as they were devoured by the depths of the dragonpit.
Barthwin smiled.
He skipped across the rim of the pit, arms out wide to steady himself as he hopped from jagged rock to jagged rock. The cheers of his friends found their way to his ears from the smooth, paved path above. He looked back and gave a little wave, chest swelling proudly. He’d gone farther than any of them had before and he’d be damned if he didn’t go farther than that pompous Ilfred would dare try to challenge in the future.
Besides, he liked it down here. Up there, there were rules. Don’t stray too close to the edge. Don’t leave the path. Don’t run too fast. Don’t push. Don’t throw stones down the dragonpit.
The pathway itself was a wide, polished promenade cut into the face of the chasm, jutting out like a marble dagger over the void below. The tip of the walkway was carved into the head of a dragon, snarling and terrifying, tasked to stand an eternal vigil over the pit.
Barthwin gazed up at that great stone face and showed it his tongue. Whatever dragons there had been were long since gone, either hunted to extinction or simply so deep in hiding that they would never show themselves again. Even if they were somewhere deep down in that pit, it made no difference. They weren’t coming up here.
Barthwin bent, scooped up another stone and lobbed it into the air. It spun, wheeling left, then crashed against the side of the pit, some hundred feet below where he stood, before tumbling down to be lost forever. Another cheer rose up from his cohorts back on the path.
Their game was a simple one: Whoever could go the farthest along the rim won. The danger was not so much in falling or awakening some buried beast, but rather in not getting caught. The elders were strict about a great many things, but traipsing about the dragonpit was chief among their list of forbidden activities. Of course, that made it all the more tempting to Barthwin and his pals.
It was an easy enough thing to get away to the dragonpit. It was seldom visited, nested high up on the sloping hills that ringed Henroth. All the villagers knew the legends of the pit. It had been built more than an age before, when dragons were a terror to all the peoples of the world, winged beasts that reigned down havoc and preyed on soft townsfolk. The great heroes of the Spiny Mountains had rallied to vanquish just such a monster, the great wyrm Eirith, who lived in the snowcapped peaks overlooking their town. But killing a dragon was no easy task. Many fell, until Barthock the Dragonscourge, for whom Barthwin had taken his name, brought down the mighty Eirith and cast him into the great chasm in the mountain. Some say that Eirith was never truly vanquished, however, and that the titanic wyrm was only resting, biding its time until it would rise from the belly of the mountain once more. And so, the dragonpit was built to keep Eirith buried and for the people of Henroth and the Spiny Mountains to keep watch over him.
An age, it seems, is too long a time to keep watch. The dragonpit had become no more than a manbuilt feature unique to lands of Henroth. It was not manned, it was not monitored. And why should it be, Barthwin always thought. There was no dragon. Perhaps there never had been. Besides, if there had been, he would just send it back down to the depths from which it rose, just as his namesake had.
He knew he could. Whenever he stood on that marbled pathway and looked out over the edge of the pit, he felt no fear. Even Ilfred, tall and strong as he was, went a shade paler when he gazed into that deep chasm. But not Barthwin. He stood and stared, unafraid, knowing that if there was anything down there, it would never dare come back up.
He was now a great distance from the edge of that pathway, though, and out here, the sounds from the pit were different. Air escaped from its depths in bursts, often whistling against the sides of the chasm as it rushed upwards. This didn’t bother Barthwin. There was no monster making these noises, he knew, no plume of smoke escaping a dragon’s snout. It was just air — and he’d prove it.
Barthwin slid a few feet down the ridge, nearing the rim. Kneeling, he took up another stone in his hand. He hurled it into the pit. Plink, plink, plink it went as the void swallowed it.
Barthwin turned back towards his friends, now no more than small, distant shapes lined on the jutting pathway, to wave a jaunty arm above his head. He knew it must be eating away at Ilfred to see him out here, venturing where none of them had dared venture before. He was a true adventurer and now they all knew it.
A sudden gust of wind swelled up from the pit. It rustled Barthwin’s furs about his shoulders violently. It was warm. Quite warm.
As quickly as it had come, it was gone.
A moment passed. He hoped that no one had not seen him freeze, thankful that they could not read his expression from such a distance. Cautiously, Barthwin inched closer to the edge. He looked down into the pit. It was impossibly deep, a sinking void in the belly of a mountain, ringed by tiers of sheer slate which slotted into one another like scales. The deeper it went, the narrower the pit became, until it eventually vanished into nothingness. Barthwin felt a swelling sensation of movement.
He fell back onto hard rock.
There was nothing down there, just an empty, black hole in the ground. The air was cold on his cheeks and a faint snow had begun to fall, but when he had looked over the edge . . . had it been warmer?
Barthwin cursed and clutched a handful of stones in his hand. He hurled them over the edge, out into the void. Behind, he heard the coarse shifting of loose gravel. If there was another warm gust from below, he did not feel it.
Perhaps it was time to go. Not for fear of dragons, of course, but because he had already proven himself. What else was there to show. No one else would dare venture out this far, not even Ilfred. The look on his smug face when Barthwin returned, triumphant, was enough to get him back on his feet.
The snow had begun to stick, making his boots slip a bit as he stood. The rocks felt as if they were moving beneath him. Movement caught his eye from back on the pathway. Barthwin squinted. A cloud had settled atop the rim of the pit. The world was cast in a pale haze. They were calling to him, he thought, though he couldn’t make out their words. The wind was picking up, blowing fatter and fatter chunks of snow into his face.
Barthwin clutched his furs about his chest and began walking. The wind was harsh. It sounded queer. No, not wind. There was something else. He glanced over his shoulder, towards the pit. It was dark. The sound was louder. A rumbling.
Barthwin scuttled closer to the edge. Far away he could hear his companions calling to him, but their words were stolen by the wind. The ground shifted under his boots, sending a spray of small stones out over the rim of the pit, where they skittered off into oblivion.
The rumbling grew. It was becoming thunderous. Rocks slid past his feet, spilling over the edge.
There are no dragons, he reminded himself. Still, staring now into that abyss, his mind swam and his knees felt as soft as butter. The rumbling was tremendous, a pounding symphony of stone pounding against stone.
He saw nothing but darkness down in that endless pit. There was nothing down there.
There are no dragons.
No, but there are other things.
The sound was not coming from the pit, he realized. By the time he wheeled back around, he knew it was too late. The stones had piled upon themselves, forming the shape of an ogreish giant, faceless and gray and looming. A minite, Barthwin thought dimly. A stone giant.
It raised an arm made of crumbling shale, topped by a fist of misshapen boulder. Before it came crashing down, Barthwin heard the warnings of his elders, as he had so many times before, but now he finally understood.
Don’t throw stones down the dragonpit.
Artwork by Daniel Dociu.