The Last Dragon

By Lawrence Buentello

Aiden, arms full of freshly cut timber, stumbled through the doorway of the crooked little house, past the little man who held the door for him.

“Place the wood by the hearth,” the old man said.

The boy had difficulty seeing past the cord wood piled high before his face, but managed to make his way to the old stone hearth in the corner of the room and dropped the wood with a clatter. He sat on the dusty floor breathing heavily.

The old man, long rumored to have been a great magician in his younger days, closed the door and looked down on the boy. Certainly dressed like a magician, he wore a long robe with celestial symbols woven into the fabric, stars and moons, and on his head sat an odd, crooked black hat that bent on an angle in the same way as the crooked little house. His long white beard hid the wrinkles of his face, though, so Aiden couldn’t tell his age.

The little man tapped his staff on the floor by Aiden’s feet.

“Good labors, lad, very good,” he said. “Now pile the wood neatly while I find a broom for you to sweep the floor.”

The little man’s robe whispered shush, shush, shush, as he moved into the next room.

Aiden, still tired from the long walk from the wood pile, stood up slowly and dusted his breeches.

While most people in the village left the old man to his ways, Aiden had bravely asked him for work. His father’s crops were meager that year, and so he thought he could earn some pennies if he did chores around the village. But no one in the village had any work for him, so he walked to the cottages farther away, each time being dismissed until he came upon the little man drawing water from a well. Of course I have work for you, the old man said, I’ll give you one copper coin for each day’s labor.

Aiden thought his fortunes had changed for the better.

When he finished stacking the wood, and picking splinters from his palms, he stood by the hearth and looked around the room.

He hadn’t noticed all the strange objects present when he came through the door. Of course, he hadn’t seen much of anything because of the wood. But now he spied a number of odd specimens, stuffed birds on tall perches, old, rusty weapons wired to the rafters, a series of small mirrors hung next to each other, a bookcase full of leather-bound volumes. Yes, it certainly appeared to be the house of a magician.

Aiden never really believed the stories his father told him of the old man’s past. His father always told colorful stories, and certainly all of them couldn’t be true.

Presently the little old man reentered the room, mumbling to himself. He held a worn straw broom under one arm in place of the staff.

Aiden turned away from the strange displays and accepted the broom from the old man. When he turned back toward the hearth he saw the brilliant globe sitting high on the mantel. But it was more than just a globe; something small and dark lay within.

He leaned on the broom and asked the old man, “Sir, what’s in that globe?”

The little old man raised his hands. “Which globe?”

“The one above the hearth.”

The little man smiled and stepped toward the mantel. He pointed up at the object with a crooked finger.

“That, my son,” he said, almost happily, “is the last dragon.”

“The last dragon?” Aiden said. “But there are no such things as dragons.”

“Well, not anymore. That’s why this one is the last.”

“But there never were any dragons.”

“Oh, yes there were, and were they ever a handful! They raided the livestock of all the villages, stole sheep, knocked over walls, breathed fire on peoples’ rooftops, yes, they were a real nuisance. That was before all the wizards and magicians got together to rid the world of the pesky things. All except for that one.”

The old man nodded, then shook his finger at the globe.

“He was the last dragon in the whole world, and I just didn’t have the heart to see them all vanish from the earth. So I cast a spell on him and imprisoned him in that globe. There he sleeps, and there he’ll remain.”

Aiden smiled at the story.

“May I see it?” he asked.

“No, no,” the old man said hurriedly. “You must never disturb it. You mustn’t touch anything in this room, because you never know what its magic might do.”

He assured the old man that he would never touch anything without permission. The old man smiled, patted the boy on the head and left the little house to water his horses.

Aiden moved the broom industriously over the floor, raising more dust into the air than actually gathering with the straws. Then he paused a moment, leaning on the handle while staring at the globe on the mantel. Surely no dragon lay inside, sleeping or otherwise. What a fanciful story!

Still, something did lie inside the globe.

Aiden, an honest boy, but very curious, didn’t think he would be disobeying the old man’s instructions if he only looked at the globe, so he set the broom down and found a crooked chair on which to stand. The chair wobbled under his weight, but once he was standing on it he was able to lean in very closely over the mantel.

To his surprise something did occupy the crystal orb, a tiny gray lizard. The boy laughed at the old man’s claim of a dragon sleeping in the glass—obviously it was only a garden lizard he’d placed inside hoping that naïve children might believe his story. Certain he wouldn’t be disturbing anything magical, since the old man’s story had to be a fable, Aiken reached over the mantel, lifted the globe from its forged iron stand and moved it into better light.

Just then the chair on which he stood decided to come alive and walked briskly out from underneath him.

Aiden’s amazement at the existence of an animated chair lasted only a second before he fell. The globe slipped from his hands and hurtled across the room. The boy landed on the wooden floor with a thump, while the globe bounced several times before rolling across the room toward an old, rusty battle ax in the corner. He’d barely lifted himself on his elbows when the globe collided with the head of the ax, which stood upside down, a most inconvenient position. A brilliant spark flared from the ax, and the crystal globe split in two.

The chair, which had fled in the same direction, danced away from the fragments and found a safe corner in which to become inanimate again.

Aiden’s aching body was the least of his concerns—what would the old man say when he saw the globe broken into pieces? He would never pay the boy now. He would—

Aiden blinked several times as he watched the tiny lizard emerge from the shards of glass. It struggled to its feet, then raised a long neck and gazed about the room. When it spied Aiden it spread two small wings across its back, opened its mouth and belched a tiny puff of smoke.

The boy’s wide-eyed stare got wider when the old man walked through the door.

“When you get through with the floors you can help me—”

The little man’s surprise cut his statement short.

“What have you done!” he said, staring at the broken globe on the floor. Then, as if afflicted by a terrible itch, he spun on his feet until he spied the little winged lizard as it scratched behind one stubby ear with a tiny claw. The lizard—which Aiden now feared no lizard at all, but a very small dragon—hissed through tiny fangs and stumbled toward the open door, flapping little wings along the way.

The old man whisked his crooked hat from his head and lunged awkwardly at the little dragon, dropping his hat in an attempt to capture it. The dragon, blinking bright, red eyes at the old man’s crooked steps, lifted itself into the air and out of reach before falling to the floor again and scurrying through the door.

The old man regained his balance and stood by the door, squinting through the bright daylight for the little beast.

Aiden rose to his feet and joined the old magician.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” he said. “I only wanted to see what lay inside the globe. I didn’t know the chair would walk away.”

The old man scowled, then shook his head. “A ladder only complains, but a chair is easily annoyed, didn’t you know that?”

“All the chairs in my house just stand there.”

“Forget the chair!” the old man said. “Hurry, go outside and find the dragon while I gather some things.”

“It’s too small to see in the grass.”

“Trust me,” the old man said, “it won’t stay small for long.”

Aiden left the house, but had no idea where to search. He surveyed the countryside, the distant stone circle of the well, the trees beyond the hills—the dragon could have gone anywhere. Then he turned back toward the house and studied the magician’s small garden. In a row of turnips—or perhaps carrots—he detected a slight motion among the leaves. He stepped nearer, as quietly as possible, and then clearly saw the little dragon—not quite so little anymore, but about the size of a large puppy— sitting on its haunches while biting noisily into an excavated root.

Now that he’d found the dragon he had no idea what he should do next. The old man remained inside the house gathering his apparatus. And, seeing how effectively the beast chewed into the root, Aiden thought it could also leave a nasty bite.

He slowly crept up to the dragon, which was too busy eating to care, and then leapt bravely through the air toward the turnips.

But before he could grab the beast it lifted itself on larger wings and flitted upward, settling a few feet away between a row of melons.

Aiden, his hands full of stalks and his mouth dark earth, rose to his knees and blinked. Evidently, dragons possessed keen reflexes.

Both Aiden and the dragon raised their heads at the sound of the old man stumbling from the house, a large sack slung over his shoulder, his robe sighing whoosh, whoosh, whoosh on the dirt pathway.

“He’s in the garden!” Aiden cried as he stood.

The old magician tottered to the garden, unslung his sack and quickly rummaged inside. The little dragon—which seemed to have grown significantly in the last couple of minutes—watched the proceedings with interest as it finished chewing on the rind of one of the melons. The old man stood up from the sack, a stoppered bottle in either hand.

“Oh, dear,” he murmured, “I’m afraid these containers have lost their labels. I’m not quite sure what they contain. Oh, well, there’s only one way to know what they might do.”

He pulled the stopper from one of the bottles and shook its powdery contents at the dragon.

The dragon sniffed the air a moment, closed its eyes and then sneezed furiously. A plume of fire roared past the magician’s robe, and the little man had to dance quickly out of harm’s way.

“Wrong bottle!” he said, pulling the stopper from the next container.

But the little dragon apparently had had enough of the proceedings and scurried from the rows of plants. Now the size of a small pig, its wings spread wider than Aiden’s reach, and it seemed twice as agile.

The old magician gave chase, holding the second bottle above his head as he ran.

Aiden, too, ran after the dragon, though he made certain to stay behind the old man.

“Do you see why it’s unwise to abuse magic!” the magician howled.

“I’m sorry I doubted you!” Aiden said between breaths.

The dragon kept its distance by alternately running and flying, since it didn’t seem capable of sustained flight. Aiden knew they wouldn’t catch it before it wandered into the large grove of trees beyond the meadow through which they ran. Perhaps the old man knew this, too, for he slowed his pace and let the creature disappear into the tree line without pursuit. They stood before the grove breathing heavily. Occasionally the dragon would peer around a stout tree trunk and flick its thick, red tongue at them before darting back behind the trees, its head now as large as a horse’s.

“He’s growing very fast,” Aiden said, a little afraid of how large the creature might become. Catching a tiny dragon was fine, but capturing a huge dragon wasn’t something he wanted to try.

“He’ll keep growing, I’m afraid,” the old magician said. “You should have seen him when I caught him the first time. Larger than a griffin, and twice as fierce!”

“How large is a griffin?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot they no longer exist. Let’s just say he had the length of twenty horses, nose to tail!”

Aiden’s eyes widened. “That’s pretty big.”

“That’s why we have to catch him when he leaves the woods.”

The old man leaned over the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Here’s what you must do,” he said. “You must find a nice, fat sheep that we can tie out in the meadow. Dragons just love to eat sheep! And this one won’t be able to resist the temptation. I’ll assume a disguise next to the sheep, so when the old rogue flees the grove for an easy meal I’ll be there to cast the potion on him.”

Aiden nodded, but he only knew of one place to find a nice, fat sheep, and his father wouldn’t appreciate him taking it from their house to feed to a wayward dragon.

He told this to the magician, but the old man replied, “I’ll let no harm come to the animal, my boy, but there will be no sheep left in this entire valley if this beast gets loose. Now, go!”

Aiden rushed all the way to his house, winded but determined, then carefully crept to the field where the family’s few sheep stood grazing in the grass. He hurried up to the fattest animal of the lot and lifted it into his arms. The sheep bleated loudly, perhaps wondering why the boy was carrying it from the house, and Aiden feared his mother might come running. But no one stopped him as he struggled mightily with the sheep, taking twice as long to return to the crooked little house.

When he reached the meadow the old magician was ready with some rope and a stake. They quickly tied the bewildered sheep to the stake. Then the old man pulled a special cloak from his sack and draped it over himself. Immediately he blended into the grass, and the boy heard him say, “Now go hide until I douse the beast with the potion!”

Aiden did so, moving far enough away from the sheep to keep the dragon from sensing the trap.

The sheep, unhappy with its tethered state, began to bleat again, certainly loud enough for the dragon to hear.

The boy looked from the sheep to the grove of trees. Before long the dragon poked its head from the tree trunks, inhaling deeply. When it spied the sheep it seemed to straighten its neck, perhaps for a better look, then slowly moved away from the trees.

Aiden didn’t know if dragons were particularly smart, but this one seemed wary of the sudden appearance of a potential dinner, and sniffed the air curiously. Then, perhaps deciding the way was clear, it moved through the trees and into the meadow.

The little dragon had grown huge! Its wings were as wide as a ship’s sails, and its tail extended away from its body like a giant snake. Its legs were thick as tree stumps, its teeth as long and sharp as daggers. As it moved toward the worried sheep the ground trembled with its weight.

The boy watched breathlessly from the grass, hoping the old magician still had the power to recapture the beast. And if he didn’t? Not only would Aiden be responsible for loosing the dragon on the village, he would certainly lose one of his family’s sheep, something his father would not soon forgive. The dragon finally reached the sheep, which now bleated in panic. But before the dragon could open its jaws to devour the animal the old man suddenly threw off his magical disguise and hurled the contents of the bottle over the dragon’s head.

But nothing happened.

The dragon stared at the old magician for a moment, then blinked its eyes and sat on its haunches. The old man stood with the empty bottle in his hand, but said nothing. Then the dragon turned to the sheep again and gathered it in its front claws. The sheep, desperately unhappy, bleated louder than the boy had ever heard a sheep bleat before. The dragon flapped its wings then, knocking over the little man, pulled up the stake with the sheep and took flight over the meadow.

Aiden rose to his feet, terrified by the thought of the dragon escaping with the sheep. Without truly realizing what he was doing, he ran toward the fleeing dragon and wrapped his arms around its tail as it passed. The dragon, surprised by the boy’s tenacity, struggled to keep hold of the sheep while simultaneously maintaining flight. It seemed to have difficulty holding the sheep and flying, but it also seemed determined to try.

The boy couldn’t really see much as the dragon tried to shake him from its tail, but he heard the little man shouting, “The potion will shrink him! Don’t let go, or we may lose him again!”

Aiden really hoped that the old magician had used the right bottle, for he didn’t know if he could take any more thrashing. He felt himself rise into the air as the dragon flapped its wings furiously—he closed his eyes and didn’t dare look toward the ground.

Then, just as he thought he might lose his grip, he felt the great tail grow narrower in his grasp, and when he opened his eyes he saw the dragon descending from the air toward the meadow again. They landed awkwardly in the grass, but still the boy kept his grip on the beast, his eyes watching the dragon’s transformation. The sheep became entirely too large for the beast to hold in its claws anymore and struggled free of its grasp. The dragon’s wings, too, now seemed incapable of achieving flight while the boy hung onto its tail. Eventually the dragon shrunk down small enough for Aiden to hold its tail in one hand. By the time the old magician reached him he held the tiny dragon in his hands, trying to avoid the small spurts of smoke the agitated beast spewed in his direction.

The old man pulled a rusty metal sphere from his sack and instructed the boy to place the dragon inside. With the sphere closed around the beast the old magician pulled a battered wand from his robe and waved it repeatedly over the sphere, muttering strange words with gusto.

At last the old man opened the sphere and removed the new crystal globe. Inside the globe sat a tiny animal that could have been a small lizard.

As they walked back to the crooked little house, the old man carefully holding the globe and the boy pulling the reluctant sheep by a length of rope, the magician said, “You’ve given an old man a great deal of exercise.”

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said. “I really didn’t mean to cause so much trouble.”

“That’s all right, my boy. But, tell me—do you think your family will believe you when you tell them you rode on the tail of a dragon today?”

Aiden shook his head and smiled. “I don’t think I’ll bother to tell them. They might not appreciate me running off with one of our sheep.”

The old man nodded.

“It’s best that you return home now,” he said, “before they find it missing.”

Aiden nodded sadly, certain the old man would never let him into his house again.

“But make certain to return tomorrow,” the old man added.

The boy, surprised, said, “Do you mean you still want me to work for you?”

The old magician laughed. “Certainly! Any lad who can help capture a dragon is bound to be an excellent worker!”

Aiden, an honest boy, and curious, could only wonder what new adventures the following day might bring—though he really hoped they didn’t involve a dragon.

The End