September 25, 2018

PodCastle 541: Andromache and the Dragon

29 minutes

* Author : Brittany Pladek

* Narrator : Wilson Fowlie

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

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Previously published by Ideomancer.

Rated PG-13.

Andromache and the Dragon

By Brittany Pladek

The dragon stood on the shore.

“For every day, I will consume one of your desires,” she told them. “You will not know which. You will not know whose. This is my tribute. Do you agree to its terms?”

Andromache nodded.

“Then it is done.” Hissing, the dragon arched her spines toward the sky, their nimbus peaks dissolving into vapor. Her foggy belly followed. Last she drew up her claws, their tips thinning to a sting of spray that whipped the villagers as it passed.

They shivered in the wind raised by her departure, numb hands longing for the fireplaces that lay behind them in the low houses of their fishing town. Andromache signaled that they should return home. The little group turned, heads hidden like sheep being driven up a mountain. It was suppertime, and they were all very hungry, except one.

Dragons had happened to other villages. They were as unpredictably regular as weather and sprung of the same source, bubbling muddily out of the wet earth, sizzling down from a lightning cloud, or coalescing in the dark space between raindrops. They were voracious but not picky: dragons could be bargained with. Which is why, during the meeting to prepare for its arrival — you could tell by certain cloud formations when a dragon was imminent — one villager had suggested the idea.

“Dragons eat anything. Maidens, moods, wallpaper. Why don’t we convince the dragon to eat something we don’t need?”

After much deliberation, and after eliminating eggshells, envy, fishheads, shit, rot, and ennui as either too dear to lose or too rare to satisfy the dragon’s appetite, they decided on wants.

“I want gold,” said one fisherman. “Why imagine what would happen if the dragon ate that! Piles of gold around me, as much as I wanted!”

“Which you’d share,” said his neighbor.

“. . . of course,” said the fisherman.

They chose Andromache to deliver the message, because she was one of the few literate people in the village and because no one could quite bury the suspicion that the dragon might respond better to a maiden.

“I’m a widow,” she had protested. “That’s not the same thing.”

The dragon wouldn’t know the difference, they assured her.

“And besides, don’t dragons eat maidens, not talk to them?”

No, they assured her, because she was not really a maiden.

“Oi,” she said, and went.

The persuasion was not difficult. One morning, a wet gulf opened in the hard packed sand that bordered the dunes. As Andromache dashed from her house, the coralwork webbing the depression filled with water. Each tiny arch swelled to become a silver shield. The shields became scales, and the dragon raised her head over the dunes.

“I am very empty,” she hissed toward the town.

Andromache stood at the top of the dunes, her hair damp with the dragon’s steam. She gave the ritual answer: “We have what will fill you.”

The dragon’s eyes boiled. “Are you the sacrifice?”

Andromache said: “I come to offer you a bargain. If you agree, you will never be empty again. We will give you tribute, and there will always be more. Our supply is inexhaustible.” She paused. “If I were a dragon, I would take this deal.”

The boiling quickened,

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