Author: Robinne Weiss

Short Story: Sir Magnus and the Dragon

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Those of you who have read The Dragon Slayer’s Son will know that Sir Magnus is a former dragon slayer who works at the Alexandra School of Heroic Arts. This is the story of how his dragon slaying career ended.

Sir Magnus MacDiermont squelched along the sodden track whistling a tune. After three days of rain, the sun was finally out, and he was near his destination—the lair of a southern blue dragon that had been terrorising trampers on the South Coast Track for months. He hoped it wouldn’t take long to find her and kill her; he planned to get a little pig hunting in before he headed back home.

At forty-five years old, Sir Magnus was practically elderly for a dragon slayer. No one liked talking about it, but few dragon slayers survived past fifty. Once they began to slow down, their days were numbered. Magnus tried not to think about it, but it weighed heavily on him each time he was called out to deal with a dragon.

His current target wouldn’t be easy to kill. Southern blues weren’t the biggest dragons in New Zealand, but they could be nasty, particularly the females. This one had already eaten two trampers and injured half a dozen others. But Magnus was feeling good today. The sun gave him confidence. He’d dispatch this dragon quickly, then have a little fun.

He dropped off the track and onto the scrap of beach where most of the attacks had happened. The dragon’s lair must be somewhere nearby, in some crevice along the rocky coast. He started toward the tumbled cliffs to his left.

A roar sounded behind him, and Magnus whirled to see the dragon burst from the rocks on the other side of the beach. His expression grew grave as he assessed his adversary. She was big, for a southern blue—not a whisker under twenty metres long. And mean, too—a truck-sized ball of flame and fury, headed straight for him.

Magnus planted his feet and waited.

The dragon swept across the beach, scorching the sand with her flames.

Fifty metres away, and he could feel the heat billowing toward him.

Twenty metres away, and he began to sweat.

Ten metres, and he blinked against the searing blast.

Five metres, and the acrid smell of burning wool hit his nostrils, as the hair on his arms scorched off.

At the very last moment, Magnus stepped deftly to the left—the dragon’s right—and the dragon surged past, roaring in frustration. Magnus chuckled. That move worked every time. He reckoned one day he might come across a rare right-handed dragon, but most were left-handed and couldn’t steer well to the right. If you could stand the heat, that little side-step would put the dragon off-kilter long enough for you to assess it and make a plan. It also let the dragon know you were a dragon slayer, which made them a little more cautious and less likely to attack.

The southern blue banked. By the time she had made the turn, Magnus had his sword and shield out. The dragon landed on the sand just out of sword reach.

“Well, well, well…Magnus MacDiermont. Fancy meeting you here.”

Magnus laughed. He was pleased his reputation preceded him. “That’s Sir Magnus to you, vile worm. You’ve taken enough trampers now. It’s time for you to move on.”

Now it was the dragon’s turn to laugh. “Or you’ll do what? Prick me with your shiny toothpick? I’ll turn you to toast before you even get near me.”

Magnus smiled. It was the breeding season for southern blues, and he reckoned that this one had gone on a rampage because she was guarding eggs. It made them vicious, but also vulnerable. To incubate their eggs, the female dragon plucked off a patch of scales just over her fire stomach. It kept the eggs warmer, but it was a chink in her armour.

To hit that chink, though, he’d have to get close enough to be incinerated by flame and shredded by claw. His shield would be of no use that close, and it would prevent him from using his sword. It was a problem many dragon slayers had faced, and there were no good solutions. But Magnus had prepared a little experiment. If it worked it would be brilliant. If it didn’t…well, Magnus’ affairs were in order, and his family knew the risks he took.

He said to the dragon, “Ah! You’re probably right. What good is my sword against your scaly hide? Perhaps we can negotiate. I have something you might be interested in.” Magnus shrugged off his pack, careful to keep his sword at the ready, and then pulled something shimmery and silver from the bag. The dragon’s eyes widened as the supple cloth-like object streamed out.

“Ooooo! Pretty!” she said.

Magnus snapped the object to unfurl it completely. He was pleased with the dragon’s response. It was just what he had expected—he’d never met a dragon who could resist shiny things. He only hoped the shiny fire shelter was enough to protect him. It worked for firefighters; with luck, it would work for him.

“You like that?” he asked. “Well, you can have it, if you can burn me.” He dove into the shelter with his sword. The dragon didn’t waste a moment—she breathed a gout of flame over him. He laughed and told her she needed to try harder.

She stepped closer. Another flame, and Magnus jeered at her again.

Three times she breathed on him in that shelter, coming closer each time, before she was close enough. By then, Magnus was envisioning himself as a potato wrapped in aluminium foil baking on the campfire. The shelter offered protection, but it was still horribly hot inside. He didn’t know if he’d survive the next blast, but it was too late to change his mind. When he heard the dragon inhale in preparation for roasting him at point-blank range, he thrust his sword upward.

The tip of the sword ripped a gash in the fire shelter, and then rebounded off the dragon’s scales. He’d missed the bare spot. He’d gambled and he’d lost.

The torn fire shelter was now nothing but a liability. Without a moment to lose, Magnus slashed the hole larger so he could see the dragon’s underbelly. There was the bare patch. He stabbed the sword again, driving it home.

And now Magnus recognised the flaw in his plan. The dragon was mortally wounded, but she didn’t die immediately. A wounded dragon is more dangerous than a room full of tigers, and Magnus was tangled in a useless fire shelter between the dragon’s front feet. He dropped his sword and lunged away. The dragon pounced, catching Magnus’s right leg in her teeth.  She lifted him and shook.  A loud crack and a stab of searing pain, and Magnus knew his leg was broken. Every struggle of his, every movement of the dragon was a lesson in pain as the broken bone tore through muscle and skin.

The dragon took a few staggering steps, flapping feebly to try to return to her lair. She made it into the air, only to crash a moment later.

Magnus tumbled to the ground and blacked out.

He came to with a hiss of pain when a wave washed over his shattered leg. He blinked, trying to remember why he was lying on the sand, and why his leg hurt so much. As his vision cleared, the dragon came into focus. Her limp body was already being lifted by the tide and sucked seaward.

Magnus raised himself to sitting and grunted as his left arm seared with pain. Broken. It must have broken when the dragon dropped him.

Another wave licked his legs, and Magnus watched the water flow red with blood. His blood. His leg was a wreck.

Help. He needed help. Now. He scanned the beach for his pack. It was nowhere to be seen. It must have been carried away by the waves already. How long had he been unconscious?

Another wave washed over him. He needed to move. His pack was gone, along with the locator beacon inside. He would have to climb back to the track and hope someone came along soon.

He tried to stand, but the world went dark. Blood loss. Too much blood loss. He began dragging himself up the beach, inching along on his butt, with one arm and one leg. Every few metres he had to stop and let the pain subside as his body threatened to lose consciousness again.

He reached the rocky step up to the track. Two metres. It had been a short hop down, and would have been nothing to climb, if he hadn’t been injured. Magnus rested, his back against the rock, for a few minutes before attempting the climb. Then he took a deep breath, gritted his teeth against the pain, and pushed himself upright.

The world swam before him, but he braced against the rock until his vision steadied. There was a red smear of blood all the way up the beach. The dragon was floating freely now, rolling in the breakers.

Just a little further. Magnus turned to face the rock. He reached high and grabbed hold of a small knob with his good hand. He wondered if his injured leg could support any weight, then decided he didn’t want to even try. Hanging by his arm, he dragged his good leg up to a foothold, wincing as the broken leg crunched against the rock. This was going to hurt. Magnus took a breath and counted.

One.

Two.

Three.

He hurled himself up, heaving his upper body onto the track above. The impact forced a cry from him.

That was the last thing he remembered.

He woke in a hospital bed, his wife reading a book in a chair next to him.

“Karyn?” his voice was ragged and his throat dry.

Karyn looked up and closed her book. She leaned over him. “Magnus.” A tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away and sniffed. “Well, it could have been worse.” She pulled an envelope from between the pages of her book and handed it to him. “They say that leg is never going to be the same.”

Magnus fumbled one-handed with the envelope. He looked up at Karyn and she smiled. She broke the envelope’s seal and pulled out two sheets of paper.

“Dragon Slayer Extraordinare,” she read. “This honor awarded to Sir Magnus MacDiermont in recognition of his services to humanity in the destruction of the rogue dragon, Bluezilla.” She looked up. “Was that her name?”

Magnus nodded.

Karyn dropped the paper on the bedside table and read the second sheet. “Honourable Discharge.” She looked up, a smile flickering on her face. “Owing to injuries obtained in the line of duty, we hereby discharge Sir Magnus MacDiermont from the Dragon Slaying profession. He retains full honours, and is commended for his faithful service.” Tension seemed to drain from her face, then shoulders. She hurled herself at Magnus and hugged him. He patted her back with his good hand.

“Honourable discharge.” His huff might have been a laugh or a sob. He’d never expected to survive to retirement. Never considered what he would do, who he would be, after dragon slaying. He was a dragon slayer. How could they take that from him? The news settled onto his shoulders like a weight, but as it soaked in with his wife’s tears, he felt it lift him up. He began to think about dreams he’d forgotten he’d ever had. Dreams for himself, his wife, his children.

Honourable discharge. He could live with that. Yes.

He could live.

Whole Wheat Bread

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I ran across this photo today–one I took several years ago–and thought it was worth sharing.

Most of the bread my husband bakes is utilitarian. It’s beautiful but, since he bakes two dozen loaves at a time, he necessarily can’t take a lot of time on each loaf. So he sticks with the tried-and-true bread shapes that are quick to form, and take advantage of the different stages of heat in our wood-fired bread oven.

But now and again, he makes different shapes. This one is simple and clever to form. The dough is rolled out into a long, flat shape, then slashed through at regular intervals down one side, leaving just a small edge uncut on the opposite side. Flip every other ‘flap’ created by the slashes to the opposite side, and when the bread is baked, the loaf resembles a stalk of wheat.

Simple and beautiful. The bread is perfect for parties, because it’s easy to tear off individual ‘grains’ from the stalk–it’s practically pre-sliced.

 

Darkness, My Old Friend

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I was off today. Scatterbrained, uncentred. I couldn’t focus on a task long enough to complete it. I forgot to hang up the wet washing before leaving the house for the day. I left things at home that I needed to take with me. I grumbled through the day. Everything irritated me.

So when I finally remembered the washing late this evening, I was seriously annoyed with myself–a beautiful clothes-drying day wasted. I snatched up the basket of wet clothes and stomped out the door headed for the shed where the clothes dryer is…

And stopped dead.

The chill night air.

The gibbous moon illuminating a mackerel sky.

Silence.

Darkness.

I took a deep breath. Centred. Collected.

And walked slowly to the shed, letting the cool night and glittering stars bring back my good humour.

 

Happy World Naked Gardening Day

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Well, you learn something new every day. Apparently, the first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day.

Thankfully, I only learned that fact after I was through with the day’s weeding and mulching.

I suspect that whoever came up with the idea of World Naked Gardening Day didn’t have a garden like mine. I spent my day pulling nettles and thistles—just the idea of doing that wearing less than long pants, long sleeves, and gloves makes me shudder. I also did some pruning. Yikes! Wielding secateurs in the nude? Then there’s the cold. It was one degree Celsius this morning. I was wearing a merino top, a jersey, and a wool hat when I started the day’s garden work, and even so, my toes were numb by morning tea time. Had I been nude, it would have been full-blown hypothermia.

I’ve got no problem with the idea of hanging out in the nude, or playing nude volleyball, or whatever, but gardening? I’ll pass on that one, thanks.

But, you know, if you’re keen, today’s the day. Happy World Naked Gardening Day!

Homemade Pasta

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2 1/4 cups of flour
3 eggs

It is one of the simplest ingredient lists ever. It is the recipe for homemade pasta.

I don’t make pasta often–maybe once every two months or so–but it’s always a pleasure to eat homemade noodles. With such a short ingredient list, I should probably make them more often, but there’s more to a recipe than the ingredients.

There’s a learning curve to pasta. It takes patience to master the feel of the dough–to know when to add just a little more flour, or when to stop kneading it and start rolling it thin.

I used to stress about making pasta. I found it quite frustrating. It was always too wet or too dry. It ripped when I tried rolling it through the pasta machine, or it wouldn’t go through at all. It became too elastic and chewy. It seemed everything that could go wrong did.

I’ve learned a lot about handling the dough through making mistakes. But I think the most important thing I’ve learned is to have patience–with the dough and with myself.

The dough will behave badly. I must accept that and have patience, working with it until it starts to feel just right, and not getting upset when it takes longer than I want it to.

Once I think the dough is perfect, it will prove me wrong, and tear as it is rolled thin. I must accept this, set the offending dough aside to rest for a few minutes, then try again.

Even the most perfect noodles will clump, or break, or otherwise be marred before they are cooked. I must accept this, and cook them anyway–they’re going to be chewed up and swallowed, and no one but me will pay attention to whether they have been broken beforehand.

Making homemade noodles is a luxury and a privilege. Not everyone has the opportunity to do so. I must accept this, appreciate this, recognise that I do this because I enjoy it, not because I have to. Even if it goes badly, it need not cause me stress. Even if I struggle with it, the end result will be delicious.

Garden Rescue Mission

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A southerly storm blew through yesterday, and the clouds cleared around midday today. The sun was warm this afternoon, but the wind remained chilly. This evening was clear and still. Perfect conditions for a frost.

There are few summer vegetables left at this point. The tomatoes outside the greenhouse are all dead. The peppers and eggplants are ripening their final fruits, the zucchinis and cucumbers are maturing at a tiny size. The corn has all been eaten, and the runner beans are giving just a handful every few days.

A frost will kill everything left in the summer garden, so I went on a rescue mission this evening. I gathered in everything that was still decent, whether it was fully ripe yet or not, assuming that anything left in the garden will be dead by morning.

It felt oddly good.

It’s not that I won’t miss the fresh tomatoes and eggplants of summer, but I also look forward to the pumpkins, potatoes, and beans of winter. As they say, variety is the spice of life. I would say that seasonality is the spice of life. Food marks the course of the year, and each crop has its own time. It gives the year variety and interest. It gives us things to look forward to with each season.

So, while I mount my summer vegetable rescue mission, I don’t worry about the loss of those summer crops. There are other delights to come.

Building Castles

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Patrick Dougherty is a North Carolina artist who builds amazing structures from tree saplings and sticks. His works are remarkably detailed. They evoke movement with their swirling lines and often skewed shapes. They provoke thought and reflection. Most of them invite you in, to experience them inside and out. And, by nature, they are ephemeral.

I can’t help but think we’re all building stick castles. We take the materials around us–the stuff life has dealt us–and build a structure we call ‘me’. Every ‘me’ is different and detailed, and many are wonky. Every ‘me’ is in motion–ever changing as we add new materials to our structure. Hopefully our ‘me’ invites people in for a more personal experience. And, ultimately, our structures are ephemeral.

Dougherty began building his stick structures with material that happened to be available in North Carolina. When he first started building structures in other places, he brought his materials with him. Over the years, he’s discovered that suitable materials can be found nearly everywhere, and he now finds what he needs close to where he’s working.

Likewise, we start off building our ‘me’ structures with the materials around us, and as we grow, hopefully we learn what we need to create strong selves. Hopefully we learn how to find those things, no matter where life takes us. The older we get, the more refined our technique, the more efficient and skilled we are at finding materials and building ‘me’. It doesn’t mean we aren’t wonky anymore–it means the wonkiness is perhaps more deliberate, planned, and stronger than it was before.

Dougherty builds about one structure a month, and he accepts that his artworks will only last two to four years. But though the artwork itself doesn’t last, its impact lingers in the hearts and minds of those who have experienced it. May our own ‘me’ castles do the same.

A New Jumping Spider

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I met a new spider today–Phidippus whitmani. This one appears not to have a common name, though a related species is known as the red velvet jumping spider.

Yesterday, I noted that the red-spotted newt uses warning colouration to tell predators it is toxic. This jumping spider uses the same sort of colouration, but in this case, the warning is a lie.

Like other members of its genus, this spider protects itself by pretending to be a velvet ant with a powerful sting. Unfortunately for this spider, who had to put up with my attentions, I wasn’t fooled, and instead was quite taken by his fuzzy red velvet.

Red-spotted Newt

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I was pleased to see today one of my favourite North American animals, the red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). These colourful little salamanders have a complex life cycle that includes an aquatic larval stage, a terrestrial juvenile (eft) stage, and an aquatic adult. The terrestrial efts, like this one, are brightly coloured.

Like most bright colours in animals, the red skin and spots of the red-spotted newt are a warning. The red-spotted newt has toxic skin secretions that protect it from predators. This toxic defence gives red-spotted newts the ability to live in permanent bodies of water with fish in them, unlike many other salamanders which fall prey to fish, and rely on temporary pools.

 

Wool Sower Gall

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Visiting America is always a rewarding experience from a naturalist’s point of view. Though New Zealand has some spectacular wildlife, it simply doesn’t have the sort of diversity one finds in North America.

This visit’s best find so far has been the wool sower gall.

This spectacular fuzzy ball, found on the twigs of white oak trees, is caused by the tiny wasp, Callirhytis seminator. The structure of the gall is reminiscent of a fluffy seed head of a plant. Small ‘seeds’ inside the fluffy exterior house wasp larvae.

Galls are fascinating structures. They are made by the plant in response to chemicals produced by an insect or mite. Galls are incredibly diverse in structure and location on the plant, but all provide food and protection to the insects or mites as they grow and develop. Essentially, the insect has hijacked the plant’s biology to create a perfect home with a built-in food source.

Gall-making evolved several times in different groups of insects and mites; it’s clearly a successful survival strategy.

But the plants aren’t entirely defenceless. In response to the gall insects, many plants produce chemicals that attract predators to eat the damaging insects.

In turn, some gall-inducing insects can turn off these chemical defences in their host plants. Host and insect are constantly evolving, each trying to get the better of the other. The galls are a spectacular result of their arms race.