Diane Gallant

        

         The child awoke from the dream screaming. For the fourth straight night, his mother went to him and found him burning with fever and drenched with sweat. She knelt beside his cot and removed his blanket. His left foot—where the sickness had entered his body—was a deep red color and the skin there now seemed to be covered with little shiny scales.

         "It was the dream again, mamma," said Tano.

         "Shhh..." said his mother. She stroked his hair and ran her fingers along his arm.

         "The sand was hot. It was scratching under my belly. It got under my nails."

         "Shhh...it was only a dream."

         "Only they were claws, mamma—not nails. And there was blood mixed in with the sand."

         "You were dreaming, Tano. It wasn't real."

         "And I was always hungry and it made me mad."

         "Everything is all right. I'm with you now. Don't talk about it anymore," she told him.

         "Stay here, mamma. Stay next to me."

         And so for the fourth straight night, Maret lay on the cot beside her son until morning, silently praying that the town's doctor would know how to cure her son of the dreaming sickness, and wondering if she had enough rupels to pay him.

        

        

         The doctor asked Maret to step out into the kitchen. Behind him, he closed the curtain to the room where Tano lay in a fitful sleep.

         "The Salamander's dreams," said the doctor.

         Maret looked at her floor. This much she knew already. "His foot," she said.

         "His foot, yes. The infection began in his foot. He must have wandered into a mass of the creature's dreams, put his foot right in."

         "But how can that be? Dreams are from the mind, like prayers. They go to heaven."

         "Not always," said the doctor. "The Salamander is a demon. Its dreams are cold and heavy. They trail along the ground—for hours or days. The sickness can enter the body through the foot, the heart, the hands, the eyes—there are many ways."

         Maret shook her head. "But I'm a good mother. I watch my son." She did. Tano was all she had.

         "Don't blame yourself, lady. The dreams of the Salamander are hard to detect. They can look like a puff of breath. Or a small area of haze, like a blur, or like nothing at all. And then, you live so close to the wall here," said the doctor, looking up at Maret's ceiling as if he could see right through it, as if he could see the high wall of stone that surrounded the town and kept the Salamander out, in the desert.

         "The wall," she said with disdain.

         "The wall is useful," said the doctor, "but limited. We need a new medicine here, for things that enter the mind and body."

         "And my son, who's lying in there right now—what can you do for him?" asked Maret.

         The doctor looked for something to say.

         "Can you cure him?" she asked.

         "Lady—"

         "All your science, all your learning—" Maret fought back her tears. She would not embarrass herself in front of this educated man. She would save her tears for later, when she was alone.

         "I'm so sorry."

         "What will happen to him? What will happen to my son?" Maret was yelling at the doctor now.

         "Tonight your son will be in the prayers of my family," he said gently. And then he turned to go.

         When the doctor reached the door, Maret cried out, "Wait. If you'll at least try to do something for him...I can pay you. I have some rupels."

         The doctor shook his head. "Keep them." And then he said again, "I'm sorry," and with that he walked out into the town.

        

        

         All that afternoon, Tano cried and complained that he was thirsty, that he was hungry, that his foot itched, that he was burning up inside. And all that day, Maret busied herself caring for her son—keeping him cool and comfortable and unafraid. He fell asleep just as the sky began to darken, but Maret knew that before long the child's sleep would be torn and ravaged by the terrible dreams.

         She slumped on the floor beside the little cot and sobbed until her insides ached. Then she quieted a bit, and thought of the doctor and his family, and she wondered if they were praying for Tano right now. She thought that she should pray too, though she suspected that God favored the prayers of wealthy men over those of a poor widow.

         She touched the fingers of her right hand to her forehead, and formed the familiar words silently on her lips. In the name of the Father—

         Just then, Maret heard a noise like a body falling outside her window, and she jumped to her feet. The noise became a scattering of pebbles. Still barefoot, she hurried to the door, pulled her shawl from a hook on the wall and threw it over her shoulders, and stepped outside.

         In the narrow alley that separated the back wall of Maret's small house from the town's great wall, she found the stranger lying in the sand and small stones. He was young. His beard, like his hair, was short and dark. He wore the long, belted tunic and brown riding pants of the desert people. A tattered backpack lay on the ground beside him. He had been injured in his fall from the top of the wall, and was clutching an elbow.

         When the stranger saw Maret, he sat up hastily and showed her his empty hands. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I'm not here to hurt you."

         Maret was not afraid. She approached the place where the stranger sat and held out her hand to him. "Here," she said. "Let me help you. Can you stand?"

         The stranger looked surprised at Maret's openness, but he took her hand and rose to his feet. "Thank you," he said.

         She pointed at his elbow. "You need to clean that wound. Are you hungry?"

         The stranger nodded.

         Maret picked up the man's backpack. "Well, come along," she said. "Come on."

         The stranger followed Maret into her house. In her kitchen, she dropped his backpack on the floor, removed her shawl, and invited the man to sit at her table. Then she lit all of her lamps, and in the light, she inspected the stranger's elbow. Then she went to her stove, and a few minutes later brought a bowl of warm water to the table.

         "What were you doing up on our wall?" she asked. She began washing his elbow, gently, and he winced at the pain.

         "Climbing over."

         "The wall is high. I never knew anyone to climb over before. Who are you? Where did you come from?"

         "I'm Andras. I came across the desert."

         Maret nodded. She had suspected as much. "I'm Maret, a townswoman."

         "You're very kind," he said.

         Maret finished washing the man's wound, and took a roll of linen from her lap. The stranger held the linen with his free hand while she wrapped it around his elbow. "Tell me, Andras. Are all desert men so extraordinary that they can scale walls higher than houses?"

         "A man running for his life can do extraordinary things."

         "Running for his life?"

         "From the Salamander," he said. "Have you ever seen it, townswoman? It's pitiless."

         Maret had never seen the Salamander. But she knew from children's tales what the creature looked like—how its red scales were as bright as mirrors, how its breath was fire, and how it prowled over the sand dunes hunting for men and ripping them apart as if they were no more than rabbits. She also knew how the dreams of the Salamander entered the town—even if it could not—and invaded the minds of good people. She shuddered. "The desert is dangerous," she said. "That's why our great-grandfathers built the wall."

         At that moment, Maret wanted to tell this stranger how she hated the wall that was so useless, but Andras said, "I'm glad they built it. Your wall saved me just now." And so Maret decided to hold her tongue, and keep her unspoken curses in her heart.

         Besides, talking about the wall meant talking about the Salamander, and Maret had no heart for that. Instead she and her guest would discuss his supper. "What do desert men eat, Andras? Do you eat bread in the desert?"

         For the first time, she saw him smile. "We eat bread."

         "And what about mutton stew? Do you eat that, too?"

         "It's my favorite thing to eat."

         And so Andras sat at Maret's table and ate bread with mutton stew. Afterwards, Maret gave him a clean woolen blanket and told him he could sleep on the cushioned pallet near the cupboard at the far end of the room. She did not tell him that, until four nights ago when her son became sick with the Salamander's dreams, this was where she had slept.

         Andras accepted the blanket. But before he made up his bed, he asked, "Do you often bring strange men into your house?"

         Maret was offended by the impolite question. She shook her head. "No, never. That would be foolish and improper. How could I trust a strange man in my house?"

         "But then why are you being so generous to me? How do you know you can trust me?"

         "Because, desert man, you came to me from the sky, like an angel," she said. And Andras laughed at this, but Maret did not.

         Then Maret bid her guest good night, and went behind the curtain at the opposite side of the room from him, where she lay down beside Tano on the little cot.

         As a young girl, Maret had listened to all the stories that her people told—the great, important histories and the lesser tales, too—and she still remembered each one. And so of course, when the stranger appeared—falling as he did from heaven, in the hour of her greatest need and at the very moment of her prayer, and saying, do not be afraid—she knew that he was an angel. In one of the oldest stories that Maret knew, Father Abraham had played host to angels and received a blessing afterwards. And so it would be for Maret, too.

         In the morning, she thought, this angel sleeping under my roof will rise and bless me. In the morning, she thought, my child will be healed.

        

        

         Tano awoke in the night, screaming and thrashing his arms and legs. His mother sat up and took him in her arms and rocked him until he stopped.

         When he was still and calm enough to speak, he said, "God speaks to the Salamander, Mamma. And the Salamander can hear it."

         "What, Tano?" she whispered. "What are you saying?"

         Tano sniffed and rubbed his face. "It hears God's voice. We can't hear God, but the Salamander can. All the time."

         Maret normally discouraged Tano from talking about his dreams, but this time she wanted to know. "What does God say to it?"

         "He says, go back, go back."

         "Go back? Go back where?"

         "Go home. He tells it go to its own place."

         "Where is that?"

         "It's a place with water and big trees. But the Salamander won't go."

         "Why not?"

         "The Salamander doesn't want to stay at home. It wants to be the king of the whole world."

         "And what does God do?"

         "Nothing, mamma. He just lets it be king."

         Maret thought that her son had said enough, and she told him, "That's not really true, Tano. That was only your dream." But in reality, she knew that the dreams her son received through his sickness came from the mind of the Salamander, and she felt sorrowful for the world that had such a terrible, murderous creature as its king.

        

        

         In the morning, Maret woke before the others. She prepared a breakfast of boiled ducks' eggs and rice cakes sweetened with honey, and then occupied herself with chores while she waited.

         Andras, asleep in a place where the sunlight streamed in through the open windows, was the next to wake. As he ate the breakfast that Maret had made for him, he told her of his plan to go into town that morning. "I need to find work," he said, "and a place that's my own, paid for by my own honest labor. But I won't forget your kindness to me. If I can ever find a way to repay you..."

         Maret sat down at her table, across from Andras. "You can repay me," she said. "You can place your blessing on my family. You can heal my son."

         "What's that?"

         "My son, Tano. He has the dreaming sickness. He caught it through his foot. He's still sleeping, but I can wake him up for you."

         Andras put his fork down and looked directly at Maret. "I know of that sickness," he said.

         "So then you'll cure him?"

         "I wish I could."

         "You're an angel."

         "I'm a what?"

         "Aren't you?"

         Andras paused for a moment, then said, "I'm a man, Maret. Just a man."

         Maret was confused. She shook her head. "No, that's not right. Abraham, our father—he received angels in his home, not knowing what they were, and they bestowed blessings on his family. And you—well, yesterday I prayed, and others prayed as well, for Tano. And then you landed outside my house, and you told me not to be afraid..."

         "Whoa, there, stop. Listen. I am very, very sorry to learn about your son. I can see you're going through a difficult time just now, so I'll be gentle and I'll tell you again. I'm not an angel. I can't help you."

         "But it's like in the story, the angels..."

         "It is not like the story, Maret—I'm sorry, but it's the opposite of the story. Abraham thought he was receiving ordinary men, and he showed them hospitality, but they were angels. You thought I was an angel, and you were kind because you expected to receive a blessing. But I'm just a man, and I don't have a blessing for you."

         Maret covered her face with her hands and began to weep. "Oh God," she said. "I'm such a foolish, selfish, wretched, stupid woman."

         An awkward moment passed, and then Andras spoke. "You know that I come from a place across the desert. If it's any consolation for you to hear this, my people are familiar with the dreaming sickness. Many people have had it, and you know, they get better, they live..."

         Maret stopped weeping and looked at Andras. "What? You know the cure?"

         "Not me. My people."

         "Then they can cure Tano."

         "Maybe they can. But it means you'll have to go there, across the desert. You'll have to bring your son."

         Maret dried her tears with the back of her hand. "I'll go. Tell me how. Tell me the way."

         "It's hard."

         "I don't care how hard it is."

         "You know, I think maybe I can repay you for some of your kindness after all." Andras stood and lifted his backpack to the table, and opened it.

         From his pack Andras removed a map of the desert, which he unfolded on the table in front of Maret. "Look here," he said. Maret leaned her head over the map, while Andras pointed. "Here's your walled town. And all this you see here, that's the desert. This line you see winding through here is the river. It goes through the desert, and to the sea. And here, where the river widens to meet the sea, the land is low and flat. That's my home. You understand, don't you, Maret? You'll have to cross all the width of the desert, and you have to find this exact place."

         "I understand."

         "Now listen carefully. The Salamander hunts by day and sleeps by night, so with you it will be the opposite. You will have to travel by night. I'll give you this map, but really, you will have to navigate by the moon and the stars."

         "And if there's no moon?"

         "The stars will have to be enough, then. So you and your son will journey by night, and by day you'll sleep in the desert. Understand?"

         "In plain daylight, with the Salamander roaming? How?"

         As if anticipating the question, Andras had already removed a second item from his pack. It was a bundle of spotty, beige-colored fabric. "With this," he said, and he unwrapped it.

         "It's a tent," said Maret.

         Andras nodded. "That's right. My people make these. It's camouflaged, and very light."

         "So the Salamander won't find us inside?"

         "Not unless by accident. It's fortunate for you that the desert is wide, but even so, the Salamander could walk in close proximity to you. It could sniff you on the wind, or hear your child crying, or walk right onto your tent. You see what I mean? For as long as you're in the desert, you will be in constant danger."

         "I understand."

         "I have one more thing to give you." Next, from his pack he removed a short sword, unsheathed it, and held the handle out to Maret. "Take this."

         She protested. "I can't use that. I never learned."

         "I know. And there's no time to teach you, either. But take it anyway. It's still a weapon in your hand, which is better than no weapon."

         Maret took the sword. She tried its weight and turned it around in her hands. "What do I do?" she asked.

         Andras watched as she waved the weapon in front of her, and he frowned. "If you need to use it, you'll just have to follow your instinct."

         Maret slashed the air with the sword. "My warrior's instinct?"

         "Your maternal instinct. Your instinct to protect your child," he said. Then he took the sword from Maret, placed it back in its sheath, and laid it on the table. "You know you'll have to bring food, too," he said. "Something dry and easy to carry. And water—enough for several days, for you and your son. That will be the heaviest thing to carry, at first."

         "Right, food and water—that much I know."

         "Listen. When you think you must be nearing the place where the river meets the sea, pay attention to what's in front of you. The houses there are blue, and they shine like metal. They're hard to see from far away, because they look just like the sea and the sky. It's designed that way. Look for a sparkle on the horizon. That's the place you want."

         Maret nodded. "All right."

         "Amid the houses, you will have to find the tallest one. You'll find it by the edge of the water. A man with a beard lives there. Tell him about your child's sickness. He will know what to do."

         Maret looked at the items on her kitchen table. "I can't thank you enough," she said.

         Andras closed his pack and with his good arm, he lifted it over his shoulder. "You shouldn't wait too long," he said. "The dreaming sickness progresses quickly." He turned to go, but in the doorway, he turned back and said, "It's not the blessing you prayed for, but I think it was good that we met." And then, leaving the map, the tent and the sword on Maret's table, the stranger walked out of her door and into the town.

        

        

         The way through the desert was difficult, as Andras said it would be. Maret and Tano traveled by night, and the nights in the desert were surprisingly cold. Tano cried because it was hard to walk in the sand, and because he was tired, and cold, and because his infected foot hurt and burned him even on the soft, cool sand. Maret found it hard to walk, too, and she was also tired, and she could not carry Tano for more than ten meters at a time, and so most of the way, the child had to walk.

         But the desert sky was clear and beautiful, sparkling with a million bright stars. Every night, as Maret and Tano made their slow way over sand, the stars before them and overhead spun in a great blazing wheel, so that all around her Maret saw constellations that she'd never been able to see before. But she kept the pole stars always on her right, and she never lost her way.

         By day, Maret and Tano slept in the tent that Andras had given her. The tent was close to invisible against the sand, and so it really was, she knew, the safest place for her and her son. But the tent did nothing to filter out sunlight and heat, and so it made a miserable place to sleep. Tano's dreams were more frightening and intense now, in this hot, wretched tent, in the full light of day. In his sleep, Tano would bare his teeth and growl like a rabid dog, or he would mutter incomprehensible syllables, so much like a foreign language that his mother would become frightened, and wake him.  Sometimes he would wake on his own, angry, and saying that he wanted to call the Salamander to the tent, and his mother would have to cover his mouth with her hand until the fit passed. These episodes with Tano were more frequent and more alarming in the desert, and Maret slept only in the brief pockets of time between them.

         The desert was a windy place, too. Everywhere the wind piled the sand in high dunes, which were hard to climb and which obstructed Maret's view of the horizon. On her first morning in the desert, before Maret went into the tent, she made a careful observation of the size and location of the dunes that surrounded her, but at night, when she came out of the tent, she saw that the wind had sculpted a new landscape, so that not one feature was recognizable. And so she gave up looking at the dunes, seeing how senseless it was to measure their journey by the shifting hills of sand, and she was glad that she and Tano had the eternal stars to guide them.

         Maret saw no physical sign of the Salamander. Her son's dreams were the only reminders that such a creature existed. She thought only of Tano now, and of finding the place where the river widened to meet the sea, where the bearded man in the tallest house would know how to restore Tano to health.

         At end of the fourth full night of walking, just as dawn began to brighten the sky behind them, Maret saw a sparkle of bluish light on the far horizon.

         Tano tugged on his mother's sleeve, and pointed behind him. "Look, Mamma, the sun is coming. It's time to put up the tent."

         Maret took her son by the arm, and turned him so that he was facing the horizon before them. She leaned over Tano's shoulder, so that her eyes were at his level, and she pointed. "Do you see a blue light? There! It just glinted..."

         Tano squinted. "Where, Mamma?"

         "Just there, where the land touches the sky. There's water there. There will be houses there, too." Then she stood up straight and said, "Tano, I think today there's no need for a tent."

         "But, mamma, you said..."

         "I know what I said. But we found the place now, Tano. We'll be there soon, before the full daylight comes. We don't need the tent anymore."

         Tano said nothing. His mother pulled him by the hand, and together, without speaking, they hurried toward the faint blue sparkle in the distance, where a man lived who would know how to heal Tano.

         The Salamander appeared without warning.

         Suddenly and noiselessly, it crept out from between the dunes and stopped in front of Maret and Tano. It was long—easily the length of ten men—and its head was as high as the pointed roof of a house. Its claws were sharp and white. As it stood before Maret and Tano, blocking their way, its eyes seemed to be contemplating them, while its nostrils flared as it caught and analyzed their scent in their air. With growing horror, Maret realized that the creature was intelligent.

         And when it spoke, Maret's horror was magnified a hundredfold. "Townswoman, you should have stayed behind your wall," it said, and it took a step closer.

         Maret put Tano behind her back and removed her sword from its sheath. "Stay away," she said.

         "There is no healing in the place you are going to. You'll find only empty promises there," it said. And it took another step in Maret's direction.

         "Liar!" she yelled, and she held up the sword with both hands.

         "The thing you're trying to do, it will fail. Your heart will break," said the Salamander. And with that, it made a sudden leap forward, and opened its mouth.

         Maret pushed her son and jumped out of the way, just as the Salamander shot a scorching hail of fire at them. And as the creature turned to face her again, she rushed forward, raised her sword and brought it down against the creature's side. There was no effect. The Salamander's scales were as hard as stone. "You are nothing compared with me," the Salamander told her.

         Then abruptly, the creature looked away from her, to Tano. The child stood on the far side of the Salamander, calling to it in the strange language of his dream. Maret cried out, "Tano, no! Don't call it to you!" But Tano wasn't listening to his mother. He stood calmly by as the Salamander approached.

         Maret rushed forward again, and this time she used all her strength to stab at the side of the Salamander's neck, beneath the scales. She missed cutting the throat, though she did manage to push the blade all the way into the neck, and when she withdrew it, she saw that it was covered with black liquid.

         As the Salamander turned his body toward Maret, the tail of the creature wiped Tano off his feet. "Did you think you could hurt me?" the Salamander asked. Again Maret dodged the breath of fire, and as she did so, she rolled toward the creature, and stabbed at its underbelly, just above the sand.

         Somewhere nearby, Tano was speaking his strange words again, though Maret could not see him. "You will not harm my child," she said through gritted teeth, and she began frantically slashing and cutting at the belly and the claws of the creature until the tough skin was torn and bloody.

         The Salamander made a low hissing sound, and Maret realized that it was no longer attacking. She knew, though, that none of the cuts she had made in the creature were fatal. And so she stepped back, sword still in hand, and looked up at the creature.

         It was thrashing its body on the sand. On top of its head stood Tano. He was stomping on the Salamander's head, crushing it with his foot. And the head, under the child's foot, was losing its shape, and crumbling into sand.

         Maret dropped her sword, and she both laughed and cried at this strange sight.

        

        

         Maret and Tano left the place where the Salamander had turned entirely to sand—its head first and then its body—and without looking back, they walked to the place of glittering blue houses. And there, at the edge of the water, they found the tallest house. The bearded man who met them at the door was dressed in dazzling white, an angel without a disguise, and with a face that Maret knew, and she gasped with wonder to see him.

         Andras bowed low before them. "Welcome, Maret. God has favored you today," he said. "And you, Tano. Today you're a hero."

         "Why did you pretend?" Maret asked. "After you sat at my table and ate the food that I made for you, why did you pretend to be an ordinary man?"

         "The Salamander was your enemy, yours and Tano's. You had to win the victory yourselves, however hard it was for you."

         "My son is still sick. Look at his foot." The red color of Tano's foot was deepening to purple now, and the tiny scales appeared harder and shinier.

         "You met your enemy bravely today, Tano," Andras said. "Tell your mother not to be afraid. We know the way to treat this, and you will live. Follow me."

         And then the angel led Tano and Maret to the river, and there, at the place where the river widened to meet the sea, he washed the child in the water.

 

 

Copyright 2007, Diane Gallant

Diane Gallant has had stories published in The Edge:Tales of Suspense, Nova SF, Revelation, Seasons in the Night and The Leading Edge. She lives in Pennsylvania.

 

    

Dragons, Knights, & Angels is a publication of Double-Edged Publishing, Inc.  It is available at www.dkamagazine.com and updates are published weekly.                                         

Dragons, Knights, & Angels (ISSN 1556-5416)
9618 Misty Brook Cove, Cordova, Tennessee 38016

For more information visit www.dkamagazine.com. This work appears as part of Issue 50, November 2007.

                                                     

Support Dragons, Knights, & Angels 

Dragons, Knights, & Angels is a publication of Double-Edged Publishing, Inc., a nonprofit corporation designated as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Double-Edged Publishing believes the written word is a powerful tool, capable of shaping ideas and changing lives.

Mail checks to:

Double-Edged Publishing, Inc.
Development-Dragons, Knights & Angels
9618 Misty Brook Cove
Cordova, Tennessee 38016

Online donations can be made and more information can be found via the Dragons, Knights, & Angels or the Double-Edged Publishing websites: