Part 1: Dragon Control, Inc.

The factory doors gaped wide on this hot and sticky Tennessee afternoon, without a worker in sight. Someone had taped a BEWARE OF DRAGON sign crookedly to the outside wall before heading for the hills. I parked my truck and walked through the doors, well protected in my fire suit as I searched the rafters for the troublesome dragon.

Yup, there she was, busily building a nest out of boxes and pallets. Her golden-green scales gleamed in the harsh light from the fluorescent tubes. She was about the size of a small horse, with broad, flaring wings. Evidently, she wasn’t at all happy with my intrusion on her nesting space. She turned her head toward me, hissed angrily, and shot a thin stream of flame in my direction.

I wasn’t always a dragon catcher. Three years ago, I was working at an Amazon warehouse with my buddy Shay when we heard there were dragons all over downtown Knoxville. At first we thought it was a hoax, but then some of our friends said they had seen the dragons, for real. So we drove into the city after work. Sure enough, there they were, roosting all over the rooftops like a flock of oversized pigeons.

Nobody had any idea where they’d come from. The most popular theories were secret government experiments or an alternate universe. But however they might have gotten here, nothing was being done about them. The Feds just wanted to send biologists to study them. Tennessee’s politicians were gleefully seeing dollar signs from dragon tourism. Most folks in Knoxville were totally freaking out, needless to say; but the Feds weren’t letting anyone shoot the dragons, and the animal control officers’ union was threatening to strike if anyone ordered its members to capture them.

“What a bunch of wusses, threatening to strike,” I said to Shay, who had grown up on a ranch in Texas and was a regular competitor in the bull-riding and steer-wrestling events at the rodeos. “I bet you could catch a dragon, couldn’t you?”

“Yeah, sure, Chris. No problem. They’re just animals, right?” Shay scratched his bushy red beard. “You gotta show ‘em who’s boss.”

The next day, I asked a guy at the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce to help me write a business plan. He was so thrilled to find someone brave enough to start a dragon-control business, he practically wrote it for me. When I set up a crowdfunding page, contributions from the long-suffering citizens of Knoxville poured in. Shay’s cousin Wanda designed a fancy logo with a hog-tied dragon thrashing and spitting fire.

In all honesty, most of the time it’s not that hard to catch a dragon, once you’ve learned how to go about it. When I went after that dragon building a nest in the factory’s rafters, I ignored her warning flame and took another step forward. Then I tossed down what looked like a big, juicy steak on the concrete floor. I took an aerosol can from my pocket and sprayed some raw-meat scent, just to make sure the dragon would notice.

“Chow time!” I announced cheerfully. “Fresh meat! Come and get it! Yummy, yummy!”

Slowly taking a few steps backward, so as to give the dragon some space, I kept a close watch on her. Most dragons were impulsive enough that they went for the bait quickly, and this one was no exception. Spreading her wings, she glided toward the floor, opening her jaws wide to snap up the steak.

Of course, it wasn’t really a steak. Just as the dragon was about to snatch it, I pressed a button on a remote control, and a finely woven mesh net popped up and settled over the dragon’s head. She could breathe just fine, but she couldn’t see anything, which prevented her from flying away; and even if dragons are just animals, they usually have enough sense not to breathe fire with their head in a bag.

All she did was sit there on the floor, making pitiful whining noises like a whipped dog and pawing at the net. Shay (who also wore a fire suit, just in case) didn’t have any trouble getting her outside and loading her into the custom-built cage on our trailer.

“Not much different from loading steers for market,” Shay observed in a satisfied tone, after we’d merged onto Interstate 75 and were heading north toward the dragon study facility up in the mountains. Passing drivers gawked, snapping photos with their cellphones. The dragon, with the net still over her head, mostly had settled down by then, although we still heard the occasional high-pitched shriek from the cage. Just another ordinary workday for us.

Part 2: The Sorcerers’ Portal

At first glance, the tiny speck circling high above the white stone walls of the Romanian castle might easily have been taken for a hawk or an eagle. I had come here in search of something else, though; and I wasn’t at all surprised when the long, scaly wings of a dragon became visible.

The castle, built on high ground above what once was a medieval town in the Transylvanian hills, had been converted during the communist era into the municipal utility building. It now served as both the waterworks and the control facility for a hydroelectric power station. Or, to be more precise, those had been its functions until the sudden appearance of dragons had sent its workers scurrying away in a panic.

“Well, Chris, at least it’s not a nuclear power plant,” my companion Shay observed, as we stood beside the flooded main road into town. The wide-open sluice gates must have been letting massive amounts of water flow past the castle for days. A truck engine started up and then roared away—again, not much to my surprise—as the town official who had given us a ride from the Bucharest airport evidently had second thoughts about sticking around.

“Small mercies,” I agreed, glancing down at our dusty suitcases, which held our fire suits and other dragon-wrangling gear. Shay and I had gone into business three years ago in Tennessee as Dragon Control, Inc., after the skies above Knoxville mysteriously filled with dragons one evening. Nobody had ever discovered why. Until now, we’d thought Knoxville was the only area affected—and then we learned otherwise last week when we got frantic phone calls from Romanian officials pleading for our services.

They had wired us a generous amount for expenses, with the promise of much more if we succeeded in ridding their country of dragons. Shay and I hadn’t needed much convincing to take off for an international adventure. We had been training a few assistants in Knoxville who could handle things well enough—we hoped—in our absence.

The road curved steeply upward through a thick forest, which didn’t seem too creepy on this bright, sunny afternoon until I heard rustling leaves very close behind me. I spun around, alert for danger; but there was only a tiny old woman climbing slowly onto the road from a path.

She wore a long multicolored dress that looked like something out of a medieval fairytale, with thick stockings and heavy shoes. Curly gray hair, which seemed to have a mind of its own, tumbled over a colorful shawl. Her face was deeply lined, and the hands leaning on her walking stick were gnarled and spotted.

“Be welcome here, dragon slayers,” she said in accented but understandable English. “Your arrival was foretold in the ancient prophecies and has long been awaited.”

I figured this was a roundabout way of complaining that we’d taken forever to get here. If so, it seemed unfair, considering how far we had traveled. Deciding to ignore it, I answered what she’d said first.

“Ma’am, we appreciate the welcome, but we are not dragon slayers. We are modern animal-control specialists, licensed by the State of Tennessee, and we capture and relocate dragons humanely.”

She just kept on nodding, as if she’d been so certain of her description that nothing would change her mind. Then again, maybe what I’d said just didn’t translate well into her language, or she didn’t know enough English to make sense of it.

“You are the one chosen to travel through the sorcerers’ portal,” she declared, staring fixedly at me with wide brown eyes as if she’d totally forgotten Shay was here. “You are the Hermaphrodite, the one who is neither female nor male, drawing upon all the powers of the earth and sky.”

My first thought was that she must have been reading too many fantasy novels. Even in a forest in Transylvania, who really believed that stuff? And hadn’t she ever seen a genderqueer person before?

Shay, bustling around by our suitcases, saved me the trouble of having to reply when he spoke. “Uh, Chris, you might want to put on your fire suit now. That dragon is heading straight for us.”

I grabbed my gear from Shay, who was already suited up. Sure enough, the dragon was very near the treetops and coming this way fast. It was much bigger than we had expected. Most of the dragons we’d captured in Knoxville had been about the size of the steers that Shay wrestled in the rodeos, but this one easily could have swooped down on an elephant and carried it off.

Tugging my visor into place, I looked through it, finding the view not at all improved. Daddy Dragon was bearing down on us like a tornado, and he didn’t look any smaller. He probably could’ve carried off two elephants, one in each front claw.

I stood there without moving, as did Shay. Out local visitor didn’t run away either, which did surprise me. Wearing our fire suits didn’t actually make it much safer for us to stand facing down this behemoth, given the fact that he could squash us flat no matter what we were wearing. But at least we looked like well-equipped professionals. Not soon-to-be-dead ones, I hoped.

Just as the dragon’s shadow fell over the road, he disappeared.

Literally. Disappeared. Meaning that I had been looking directly at him, and an instant later he wasn’t there.

I turned my head from side to side. Nothing. The Romanian woman was still standing right next to me, placidly nodding, like vanishing dragons weren’t anything new around here.

When I took off my headgear for a better view without the visor, that was when I saw the sorcerers’ portal. Or at least, that was what I assumed the woman had meant when she used that term. Just above the road, extending for a short distance above the trees on either side, a square of blue sky flickered like a poorly streamed video.

Shay, who was also bare-headed by now, stared at the portal for several seconds before he said what we both were thinking.

“No way either of us is going through that.”

Part 3: Stone Troll Dead

To all appearances, the Transylvanian forest had returned to normal immediately after the dragon’s departure. Birds chirped peacefully, branches stirred in a gentle summer breeze, and the sound of water steadily flowing nearby would’ve been soothing if I hadn’t known the road was flooded ahead. And if the flickering square of sky that the Romanian woman had called a sorcerers’ portal hadn’t still been parked, ominously, right above my head.

I looked around for the woman, but she was long gone already. For just a moment, I caught a glimpse of her bright dress and shawl through the trees, moving a lot faster than I’d have thought possible for an old lady with a walking stick. That set off my mental alarm bells, but I had no time to act. Only a fraction of a second later, I heard a shout from Shay, who was standing a few paces away.

“Chris, watch out!”

A huge shadow fell over me. Of course, my first thought was that the dragon had swooped back down through the portal and that I was about to be roasted, since I’d taken off the headgear of my fire suit. But no, the shadow was mostly round, not dragon-shaped.

The shape reaching toward me resolved into a giant hand, apparently connected to an arm on the other side of the portal. Its dull grayish-brown surface looked like stone rather than flesh. Before I could run away or do anything halfway sensible, the hand grabbed me firmly and lifted me through the portal into the sky.

Except that it wasn’t sky on the other side—it was water. And it was clear enough to see that I was just above the rocky bottom of a lake or bay. For an instant, the green forest flickered beneath me, and then it winked out as the portal closed. There was nothing besides rock under me now.

The hand raised me smoothly through the water and then deposited me, gasping for air, on what looked like the top of a granite boulder forming part of the lakeshore. When I looked down, though, I realized it wasn’t a boulder. The outline of a stone troll was clearly visible in the water, and the hand that had captured me was now resting on the bottom of the lake. I was standing on the troll’s head, under a dark and gloomy sky, with jagged mountains behind me and cliff dwellings cut into the rock.

And it was HOT. Wouldn’t you think a lakeshore with low, heavy clouds would have a cool breeze? Well, maybe that would’ve been true back home in Tennessee; but this sweltering, stagnant air felt like it came straight out of the gates of hell. It even smelled faintly of sulfur, which meant that there had to be dragons not far away.

I didn’t see any dragons close by, though, which was about all that had gone right today. My fire suit, with the headgear unfastened, was now full of icky lake water. Taking the suit off to shake it out, I kept careful watch for dragons or other potential perils. There didn’t seem to be anything alive nearby, except a few clumps of straggly brownish grass pushing up through cracks in the rock. When I looked more closely, I realized that the cracks were wrinkles in the skin of the troll’s head and that there were ridges running through the granite like veins. The grass was hair growing out of the troll’s mostly bald dome.

My fire suit already was almost dry in the unnaturally hot air, as were the rumpled business-casual shirt and pants I’d been wearing underneath it. That didn’t leave me feeling much better. I stomped savagely on the nearest clump of grass and then yanked it up by the roots. Although I would’ve liked to say this was a brave, calculated plan to provoke the troll into throwing me back where I’d come from, it was nothing of the sort. I just hadn’t thought about the much more likely possibility of the troll smacking me like a bug.

What actually happened, of course, was nothing at all. The troll never moved. Smelly ichor dripped from the twisted roots of the grass clump I was holding, and in disgust, I threw it as far as I could into the lake. There wasn’t even a ripple in the still water when it sank. Everything around me, including the troll’s massive figure in the water, looked and felt dead.

I only hoped that I wasn’t about to end up stone troll dead, too.

Part 4: An Unwelcome Conclusion

I was just about to turn away from the dead-looking lake when I noticed a small ripple forming along the horizon. Tiny wisps of fog started to rise from it. At first, they were so faint that I wondered if I might have imagined them. A few seconds later, though, I heard a whumpp sound, and a thick vapor boiled up to form a looming cloud in what had been, until then, an unbroken gray sky.

Just below the cloud, a wave started rolling toward the shore where I stood. It moved at a steady pace, like the tide coming in at the beach. Rising higher, it finally crested and began to curl as if breaking over unseen rocks. I might’ve been looking at ordinary surf—except that, as it came closer, the outlines of scaly blue-green heads became visible all along the wave’s crest.

I found myself wondering, in a strange moment of detached curiosity, whether sea serpents could breathe fire like their dragon cousins. But obviously, the situation called for being more concerned with self-preservation, and I wasn’t about to stick around long enough to find out what they could do.

Tossing my now-dry fire suit over my right shoulder, I took off running across the stone, trying (without much success) not to think about the fact that it was really a troll’s head. I listened the whole time for the sound of that wave hitting the shore, but the unnatural silence persisted. All I could hear was the sound of my own shoes slapping against granite.

After I crossed the stone and came out onto a road made of hard-packed earth (or at least, something that looked and felt like it), I slowed down just enough to take a quick glance behind me. Although I expected to see a few of those scaly heads reaching my way, I was wrong. Once again, there was no sign of life or motion anywhere near the lake. It had gone back to flat, dead-looking water. Both the wave and the cloud had totally vanished.

The sulfurous smell of dragons was much stronger here. Steep cliffs loomed on either side. Ahead, the road narrowed, leading to a dark tunnel cut into the mountain. Cave openings at regular intervals—much too regular to have formed naturally—suggested this might be the home of a primitive cliff-dwelling tribe. No paths led up to the caves, however, and some of them were on sheer rock faces that didn’t look anywhere near being climbable.

I’d already started putting on my fire suit in response to the obvious conclusion before my conscious mind caught up to it: Those cliff dwellers were very unlikely to be human.

Part 5: Stranger Danger in Dragonopolis

I wouldn’t have thought the sky could get any darker and gloomier above the dirt road that was, apparently, Main Street in downtown Dragonopolis. I was wrong, of course. Maybe not literally wrong, but everything around me looked darker through the visor of my fire suit than it had upon my arrival.

Now that I wasn’t running for my life or hurrying to get my fire suit in place before any dragons could swoop down and roast me, I had time to look more closely at my surroundings. They didn’t seem to offer much in the way of escape routes, unfortunately. Behind me was the lake or bay I’d come from, with its hungry sea serpents. Sheer cliffs full of dragon caves rose up on both sides of the road, which led only to a tunnel entering the mountain. Light gleamed faintly from deep within the tunnel as it curved to the left.

Other than the tunnel, nothing else broke the stark expanse of the cliffs at ground level. Well, unless I wanted to count a few dragon dens barely low enough to be reached by a climber more intrepid than myself. As a professional dragon-control specialist, I had climbed up to a nest on occasion to retrieve hatchlings after capturing their mother, but it hadn’t been my idea of fun.

A wisp of smoke curled up from the nearest of the low caves, off to my right. I heard a scrabbling of little paws, and then a fledgling dragon emerged from the den, eyeing me with curiosity. Spreading golden wings, it glided down to the road, only a few steps from me.

The fledgling wasn’t a threat—its head didn’t quite reach my knees. I was a lot more concerned about avoiding a close encounter with its mother, who surely had to be nearby. No more smoke came from the den, so perhaps she had gone in search of food.

Beating wings and a screech from behind me confirmed that guess. Mama Dragon, gripping an ugly snout-faced fish in her talons, went into a steep dive. I took a quick step toward the far edge of the road as she landed with a thud and a cloud of dust, halfway between me and Junior. Then she hissed at me, almost like a goose protecting a gosling—not that a goose would’ve breathed fire or been the size of a large cow. I was lucky she hadn’t decided to squash me.

I kept on walking toward the tunnel, slowly enough that I wouldn’t look like fleeing prey, and without taking my eyes off Mama. She watched me just as closely for a minute or so before turning to chatter angrily at her offspring. I was pretty sure this couldn’t be anything but a lecture on staying away from strangers.

After a few more steps, I started breathing a little easier. Mama and Junior went back into their den to chow down on the fish. The tunnel was closer now, and there was enough illumination to show me that no dragons lurked inside the entrance. Of course, there was no way of knowing what else might be in there, but I reminded myself that I didn’t exactly have a long list of choices.

Especially when I heard more wings beating above me. Dragons came out of their caves on both sides of the canyon, all of them flying in my direction. Turning around, I took a quick count—at least two dozen of them. Bad odds if they chose to attack; my fire suit wouldn’t last long against their sharp teeth and talons.

Staring up at the nearest dragon, I hissed as loudly as I could, trying to imitate the sound of a protective nesting mother. The dragon didn’t turn away, but it landed on the dirt road—followed by the others—and paused for a few seconds before advancing slowly toward me.

I hissed some more, bringing the dragons to a standstill again, and backed a few paces toward the tunnel. That went on for several minutes—hissing and backing, hissing and backing—until the rocky walls of the tunnel’s entrance rose around me. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed that the tunnel appeared to be empty of life.

An icy wind blew toward me along the tunnel. I backed up a few more steps, until it became clear that the dragons weren’t following, and proceeded to walk normally around the bend. The tunnel ended in an ordinary-looking door with a round metal knob. Or rather, the door would’ve been ordinary if it hadn’t been about three times the size of a human-built door. It obviously hadn’t been built by dragons either, given the fact that they didn’t have hands with opposable thumbs. Sunlight—but no warmth—came from a window set into the top of the door, which was far above my head.

I reached up and put both of my hands on the knob. It turned easily, and the door swung outward to reveal a very different landscape.

Part 6: Into the Wilderness

The icy wilderness beyond the oversized door looked eerily empty. It wasn’t altogether devoid of life; a few scrawny conifers clung to the rocky slopes on either side of a frozen lake, but I saw no animals or birds. Sunlight brightened the scene but gave little warmth.

I didn’t see any sign of dragons, either, which was one advantage of suddenly finding myself in a bitterly cold wasteland. Dragons, like all reptiles, preferred warm climates. Still, if I froze to death here, it wouldn’t matter that nothing was trying to eat me.

Going back the way I came wasn’t in the cards, though; not with dragons and sea serpents in the way, and of course I had no clue how to reopen the portal to my own world even if I could reach it. Lacking any other choice but to go forward, I let the big door swing shut behind me, but not until after I checked to make sure the knob would turn from this side. No sense locking myself out when I had no idea what I’d find here.

I took off the hood of my fire suit to get a better view of the landscape without the visor. Looking up, I saw no flickering magical portals anywhere, which didn’t surprise me. After all, nothing was ever that easy. I did see two blood-red moons that hung near the horizon, both large enough to give the unsettling impression that they might fall out of the sky at any moment. The sun was low enough that it didn’t look like I could walk far without losing the daylight.

The cold wind in my face was strangely constant, without lulls or gusts. It smelled of ice and rock, with maybe a trace of woodsy scent from the trees, but that was more likely my imagination. Putting my hood back on so I wouldn’t lose too much body heat, I decided to start walking to my right, toward the setting sun. If I didn’t find shelter in that direction soon, then I’d have to turn around and come back here. The hard stone of the passageway inside the door wouldn’t be the most comfortable place to sleep, but it definitely beat freezing in the open air.

I picked my way carefully along the rocky shore, feeling very thankful for my sturdy shoes. A clump of conifers nearby offered a windbreak and more level ground, so I headed toward it. There were no paths, which suggested that no predators were likely to be lurking, but I kept a close watch anyway.

After a while, the trees grew more densely. Calling them a forest would still have been a stretch, but they could at least pass muster for a respectable woods, of the sort that lakeshore cabins back home in Tennessee might’ve had. The sun was just about to sink below them, which would have been my cue to turn around, when I saw the bright glow of a lantern through the trees.

Part 7: Friendly Alien Greetings

As the lantern came closer through the forest, I couldn’t quite make out who—or what—held it. The shadowy figure loomed above the height of any human; but even so, my best choice seemed to be asking for hospitality, if at all possible. I had no cold-weather gear, and the already-frigid temperature was dropping fast as the sun sank toward the horizon.

When he came clearly into view—”he” was my best guess as to gender, due to a long and bushy beard—I couldn’t decide whether he looked more like a Sasquatch or a caveman. He wasn’t as much of a giant as the huge door in the tunnel might have led me to expect. Eight feet tall, maybe, and hairy all over like a Sasquatch with caveman-style clothes roughly made from animal pelts.

I figured I’d better hurry up and say something friendly when he held the lantern higher, tilting his head one way and then another, looking baffled to find a scrawny little alien like me suddenly appearing. To give him a better look, I took off my hood, trying—without much success—not to shiver when the wind hit my face.

“Hey there, Sasquatch. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Lovely planet you’ve got.”

Well, maybe it could be called lovely if one were inclined to overlook such minor details as dragons, trolls, and sea serpents. On the plus side, nothing had tried to eat me (yet) in this forest.

I plastered a big smile on my face and then said, “I’m Chris,” pointing toward myself and speaking slowly and distinctly. “Chris.”

My newfound companion beamed delightedly and echoed, in a booming voice, “Cree-iss!” Then he poked me in the chest with a thick, stubby finger—hard enough that I had to brace myself not to stumble backward—and pointed toward his own chest while saying something that sounded like, “Irawaddagummygolly.”

“Glad to meet you, Ira.” I made myself smile even more broadly.

I was pretty sure he hadn’t understood a word I’d said, but he seemed willing to offer hospitality anyway when he turned back the way he’d come, gesturing for me to follow. By then, it had gotten dark enough that I had to focus on making my way carefully through the trees as I trailed along behind him. That was just as well because it distracted me from thinking about other possibilities, such as that Ira might be a cannibal with plans to roast me for his dinner.

I shivered again and told myself, firmly, that it was just from the cold.

Part 8: Dinner with Bigfoot

I hadn’t been walking much more than ten minutes before I saw a cabin through the trees, but by then it was nearly full dark. The two moons, which had taken on a greenish hue after sunset, had risen enough that they no longer seemed perilously close. Their light helped me to stay on the path when Ira, with his much longer stride, got well ahead of me with his lantern. Snow had started falling and already coated the frozen ground near the cabin, where the trees were sparse.

The word “cabin” seemed to suit Ira’s house because it was a simple wooden building with the dimensions and general appearance of a hunter’s cabin, although sized for giants. The doorknob, which was barely within my reach with raised arms, came to shoulder height on Ira’s sturdy Sasquatch-like body, leaving me to wonder what sort of people might have lived here originally.

Inside, the cabin felt wonderfully warm after my sojourn in the frigid woods. A fire burned brightly in the large stone hearth across from the door, and a stewpot hanging above it gave off an enticing aroma. I hadn’t eaten since grabbing a quick breakfast at the Bucharest airport in what seemed like another lifetime, and I sternly reminded myself that I’d better keep my focus on looking for potential dangers.

Nothing looked ominous when I surveyed the one-room cabin. The furniture, all made of wood, consisted only of a table, two chairs, and a footstool. Boxes of various sizes were scattered along the walls. A rug covering the floorboards by the fireplace was the pelt of a large animal I might have taken for a brown bear, except that its paws were absurdly oversized and had seven toes. In a corner, another rug on a raised platform apparently served as Ira’s bed. It all looked spartan in the extreme. I heard squeaks and flapping wings from somewhere far above in the darkness of the rafters, but otherwise there seemed to be nothing of concern. Walking across the room, I held out my hands to the fire’s cheery blaze, trying to get some warmth back into my icy fingers.

Ira picked up one of the smaller boxes and the footstool, setting them down next to me and gesturing for me to sit on the box. When I did so, the footstool came to a reasonable height for a small table. Rustling around in the other boxes, Ira took out two chipped ceramic bowls with mismatched patterns, two dented metal spoons, and a ladle that I thought at first might be a shovel. I brushed some dried mud off my makeshift table while Ira ladled stew into the bowls.

When he put a bowl in front of me, steam rose from the bubbling stew in the firelight. Mushrooms were recognizable, and there were chunks of a red root vegetable that looked like beets, along with the mystery meat. No, rodent meat, I corrected myself, noticing part of a tail. Doing my best to look on the bright side, that at least meant Ira probably wasn’t a cannibal.

I hadn’t quite gotten up enough gumption to start eating my big helping of alien rodent stew when Ira, now seated at the table, spoke. Although he was looking directly at me, his voice had the cadence of a ritual chant. Guessing that he might be saying grace, I stayed still, politely waiting for him to finish. Not having grown up in a religious family, I then mumbled awkwardly, “God is good, bless this food, amen.” I picked up my spoon and silently added a more fervent prayer that it wouldn’t kill me.

Ira’s chant had left me feeling calmer, though, as if his words—even though I couldn’t understand them—had somehow brought peace to the cabin. I managed to relax enough to eat the stew like it was an ordinary meal. It didn’t taste half bad, honestly. I wasn’t adventurous enough to eat the tail, however, and left it at the bottom of the bowl. So that Ira wouldn’t feel insulted, I rubbed my belly and let out a loud belch to make clear that my skinny little body had been very well fed.

Chuckling, Ira gathered up the remains of the meal, took a pail of hot water from the hearth, and poured some water into a basin to wash the dishes. The familiarity of that simple chore left me, for just a moment, nearly forgetting that he wasn’t human.

Part 9: Spellbound

While Ira washed the dishes, I took off my shoes and folded my dragon-protective suit into a neat rectangle. It made a reasonably comfortable pillow on the rug in front of the fireplace. I stretched, yawned, and listened to the cozy sound of the flames crackling as I watched Ira put the dishes away.

My self-preservation instincts nagged me again that I’d better stay on my guard. After all, this cabin wasn’t a vacation resort; it was an oddly oversized building on a strange planet, currently occupied by my Sasquatch host and whatever small creatures were squeaking in the rafters. For all I knew, they might be vampire bats, just waiting for me to doze off before they pounced.

I couldn’t muster enough energy to do more than turn my head, following Ira with my gaze as he opened another box. He carefully removed a book that looked ancient, with discolored pages. On top of the book, a bright pink flower had a weirdly lifelike appearance, as if it had just been picked.

Setting the flower back down in the box, Ira carried the book toward the firelight. He thumbed slowly through the pages, holding the book wide enough that I could see it wasn’t in any alphabet I recognized. Neat vertical columns filled the pages.

When he found his place, Ira began reciting the words in a slow, measured tone, moving a thick finger beside the letters as if he wasn’t much in the habit of reading. His voice felt soothing to me, although I couldn’t understand the words. After a minute or so, though, I started to pick up a few flickers of meaning. One word that he repeated three times sounded as if it meant “stranger,” and I understood another word as meaning “magic.”

At that point, the warnings at the back of my mind turned into clanging alarm bells. I had come to this world through what I’d been told was a sorcerers’ portal, which meant it was a reasonable assumption that there were sorcerers in the vicinity. And, of course, sorcerers had spellbooks. Ergo, Ira was casting a spell on me.

Before I could collect my muddled wits enough to decide what to do about it, the spell took effect, and I fell soundly asleep by the fireplace.

Part 10: A Necessary Translation

Dragons wheeled and dove in a clear sky, their mouths open as if screaming in anger, but producing neither sound nor flame. Following the flight of the nearest, I turned my head to the left, and something crinkled under my ear. I was just lucid enough to notice it wasn’t a pillow as the dream faded. The thick fur that had been put over me wasn’t exactly a blanket, either.

I sat up, finding myself still on the bearskin (or whatever kind of animal it was) rug in the cabin where I had fallen asleep. Embers still flickered in the grate, but there wasn’t much heat or light, either from the banked fire or from the sun coming through dirty windows. On second glance, the windows were not only quite dirty, but looked as if the streaked and yellowed glass might be hundreds of years old.

When I became uncomfortably aware of bodily needs, that didn’t come as a surprise after last night’s rodent stew dinner. The cabin evidently had no plumbing, and I didn’t see anything that might be intended as a chamber pot. Presumably Ira, being a Sasquatch or caveman or whatever, didn’t mind going outdoors in any weather when nature called.

With a sigh, I reached for my shoes and started putting them on. Ira, who was sitting at the table sewing some kind of white fur garment with a bone needle, gave me an inquiring look.

“I was just looking for a toilet,” I muttered, feeling rather foolish.

After that uncreative sentence came out of my mouth, I realized that I hadn’t been speaking in English. The words rumbled in my throat like Ira’s mysterious chanting yesterday.

Putting aside his sewing, Ira obligingly opened the door, gesturing toward a line of tall conifers just past the snowy clearing. He replied calmly in the same language. “The necessary is over there, behind those trees.”

Taking that to mean an outhouse, I stepped onto the porch, shivering a little in the wintery chill. It wasn’t nearly as cold as last night, though. The wind had died down, and the snow was already starting to melt in the midmorning sun. Slush splattered over my shoes.

Had I really slept that long, or were the nights here shorter than on Earth? A warbling melody interrupted my thoughts, and I saw what might have been a flutter of wings behind the nearest tree. No birds were in sight, however, when I found the narrow path into the woods.

Unfortunately, there was nothing as civilized as an outhouse. There was only a shallow trench, half filled in. A heap of dry leaves, some loose dirt, and a rusty shovel provided the bare minimum for sanitation. Not having any better alternatives, I did my business and shoveled some dirt over it. With a little luck, the makeshift T.P. wouldn’t turn out to be the local equivalent of poison ivy.

Turning back toward the cabin, I considered what I was going to say to Ira, now that he had contrived for me to speak his language. If Ira had anything to do with the sorcery that had literally snatched me out of my world, then it was high time he started explaining himself.

Part 11: Wildlife, Interrupted

I stomped through the slush on my way back toward Ira’s cabin, mentally rehearsing how I would demand that he explain his sorcery. Distracting me from my thoughts, the cheerful trilling that I had taken for alien birdsong sounded again, much closer. I glanced to my right and saw a bird perched on a snowy branch. It resembled a cardinal, but it was larger; and the song I’d just heard did not sound at all like a cardinal’s distinctive notes. Whatever the differences might have been, the bird’s bright red feathers reminded me of holiday cards and winter travels.

This wasn’t a trip to a vacation resort, my grumpy subconscious informed me again. When I saw Ira standing in the doorway holding up a white fur coat, however, it did almost look as if I had acquired my own personal Sasquatch valet. Scraps of fur littered the dusty wooden floor under the table where he’d been cutting the coat down to my size.

For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if he might have put an enchantment on the coat. Common sense told me it was much more likely he just didn’t want me to freeze, given my obvious lack of both winter clothing and furry skin. Besides, I wasn’t interested in freezing; so I held out my arms and let Ira put the coat on me. It came to my ankles, comfortably warm, with no weird magical effects—or at least, none that I could notice.

“The coat belonged to my mother,” Ira said in a soft tone, looking past me toward the forest. “She has been dead for three winters now.”

I bit back the complaint I’d been going to make about sorcery, not wanting to sound like an ungrateful jerk.

“I’m sorry, Ira.”

“She was gathering mushrooms on a misty autumn day, and a warhagalla got her.” Turning to look inside for a moment, he gestured toward the big pelt on the floor by the fireplace. “They don’t often range this close to the mountains. Even wild animals can feel the curse.”

I couldn’t feel anything but the warmth of the fur coat, honestly. The bird didn’t seem perturbed either, to judge from the happy chirping. I glanced in its direction and was surprised to find it sitting motionless on the branch, with its beak closed. What other creature, I wondered, might be doing the singing?

Then the bird opened its beak and produced a screech so hideous that my first impulse was to cover my ears. I wasn’t sure if Ira might consider that rude, so I kept my hands at my sides. But evidently, he wasn’t a great fan of the noise either. A stone from his well-aimed slingshot hit the bird right in the middle of the chest, knocking it into the snow.

Without a pause, the angelic singing continued. I saw something moving behind the tree, and then a large flying rat came into view, its mouth wide open as it warbled. Its fur was a silvery gray, and its ears and wings were a rosy pink. A large tail curled over its back.

I didn’t have time for more than a quick glance before another stone flew.

“Hey,” I complained, as the rat thudded to the ground. “I’m sort of a tourist here, you know. Couldn’t you let me discover the wildlife before you start killing it?”

Looking perplexed, Ira was silent for a long time as he tried to sort out my meaning. Finally, he gave a practical answer.

“You’ll be glad enough of the meat when it’s time for dinner.”

Part 12: Simple Charms and a Curse

My feet dangled like a small child’s from the oversized chair when I sat at the table to chop vegetables for Ira’s stewpot. He had given me an odd choice of knives: most were crudely made from bone or obsidian, but one looked like stainless steel, with a cracked and discolored plastic handle. I took a bone knife because it was the smallest.

Even more incongruous was the dainty floral-pattern teacup, complete with saucer, in which Ira had poured me some hot cider. Taller than a beer mug—and with a noticeable amount of alcohol in the contents—it sat on the table next to the rough wooden platter that held the veggies.

I didn’t mind helping to get dinner started, especially since Ira had given himself the much nastier rat-butchering chore. He was sitting on the front steps—out of my sight, thankfully—and whistling like it didn’t bother him at all.

Another swig of the cider gave me enough courage, or perhaps foolishness, to start questioning him about what the heck was going on here.

“So, Ira,” I began, as cheerfully as I could manage under the circumstances, “how did you learn to be a sorcerer?”

The whistling stopped, and something landed in Ira’s bucket with an icky splat.

“My mother taught me to read the ancient runes. But we have no more sorcerers; they left our world long ago. My spellbook has simple household charms, such as for preserving flowers and vegetables.”

Just my luck, I thought, as I picked up another lumpy vegetable that did indeed seem to be unnaturally well preserved. I could’ve used a powerful sorcerer to send me home, but it looked like what I got instead was a Sasquatch script kiddie.

“Magically teaching me your language in my sleep was more than just ordinary household stuff,” I observed, not quite ready to give up on the possibility. “Does your book have any spells for traveling to other worlds?”

“No. Most of the spells are simple and practical, as I said. There are a few—such as the language spell, and the friendship charm that I spoke over yesterday’s dinner—that once were useful but now have little value. They came from a time when my people lived in great cities, speaking different languages and often going to war. Now, because of the curse, we are few, and the old languages have mostly been forgotten. I never had occasion to use the language spell before last night.”

I chewed on that answer for about a minute (along with a thick glob of fruit peel in the cider) and came to the conclusion I was lucky I hadn’t been turned into a frog by accident. Or an operatic winged rodent. Another of them had just started singing, not far from the door. I was glad Ira didn’t go for his slingshot this time.

“Okay. Can you tell me about the curse?”

“Very long ago, the cities were vast.” Ira’s voice deepened into a storytelling cadence. “The people fought over land and food. Their machines befouled the air and water. Their great boats stripped the seas bare of fish. Left hungry, the dragons destroyed fishing boats, snatched livestock from farms, and set forests ablaze. The people fought back with powerful weapons, but the Last War had no victors. The world was left in ruins, and the sorcerers created portals to escape it. Before they left, the sorcerers cursed us to diminish until we learned how people and dragons both could live in the world.”

Ira carried his bucket inside and dumped the contents into the stewpot, together with my chopped vegetables, some mushrooms, and a pailful of water. He hung the pot over the fireplace and went back outside for wood.

“But I don’t know what the sorcerers might have meant by that,” Ira continued, once he had a good blaze crackling. “The Last War ended long ago. People and dragons have left each other alone for many generations, yet we have not ceased to diminish. The cities still lie in ruins. We scavenge in the rubble like insects. When my mother settled here, she believed that there might be another spellbook hidden in the tunnel under the mountain and that she could learn from it how to break the curse—but she never found it.”

Scowling, Ira stirred the stew with his huge ladle before he turned toward me and spoke again.

“I think it doesn’t exist, and the sorcerers just left us here to die.”

Part 13: Warrior Hero, Not

The morning’s hazy sunshine had given way to clouds and rain showers by midafternoon, turning to sleet soon afterward. A thick bluish glaze had built up on the cabin’s ancient windows by nightfall. Howling winds shook the walls. Ira, lighting candles that gave off the crisp scent of the forest’s conifers, observed in his usual calm tone, “There will be a blizzard tonight.”

Not looking at all bothered by that prospect, Ira sat down in one of the cabin’s two chairs, propped a giant hairy foot on a stool, and started buffing his toenails with what looked like a pumice stone. If I had really been a dragon-slaying warrior hero like some people foolishly imagined, then I’d have been doing something useful—mending armor, or whatever. Instead, not being anything of the sort, I got myself another cupful of hard cider from the old barrel in the back corner.

I was already tipsy enough that I had to look away from Ira so I wouldn’t start giggling. Even if he might not really be a Sasquatch, the thought of Bigfoot’s nail care routine struck my semi-functioning brain as hilarious. But of course, laughing at one’s host while stranded on an alien planet during a blizzard wouldn’t have been the smartest thing to do. I glanced toward the hearth where the stewpot hung.

“Tomorrow’s dinner will be baked fish,” Ira informed me, in the tone of a waiter announcing the daily special. “There’s frozen fish in the cellar.”

Following his gaze, I noticed a trapdoor set into an open area not far from the cider barrel. Its hinged metal handle was tucked neatly inside a groove cut into the floor for that purpose.

“A creek not far from here has good fishing,” Ira went on. “Usually it runs clear and fresh, with meltwater from the mountain’s snows.”

He removed his foot from the stool, swigged some cider from his own enormous mug, and then started working on the other foot. I looked away again, trying not to think about how much this sounded like a normal conversation about fishing with my friends back home. The urge to giggle had gone away by now, and I just felt gloomy as I started talking.

“Where I’m from, in northeastern Tennessee, there’s a road called Stinking Creek Road, high up in the hills. Back when I was in high school, I stole one of the road signs and used it to decorate the inside of my locker. I told my classmates that I grew up in a cabin in the backwoods, along Stinking Creek, eating roadkill for dinner. I wanted to build up some hillbilly cred. None of it was true, of course. I grew up in an ordinary trailer park like any other ordinary kid, and I only ate roadkill once, when my brother hit a deer with his truck and we brought it home to butcher it.”

Ira listened quietly, nodding once, though—even with a magical translation—he couldn’t have understood much of what I was saying. A half-burned log fell to the bottom of the fireplace with a thud, sending up a shower of sparks.

“The creek here doesn’t stink, but it can be dangerous,” he finally said. “Ice serpents lurk beneath the surface. When they haven’t eaten in a while, they become nearly transparent, with only the faintest outline over the mud and pebbles. One of them almost got me last year.”

I added that unwelcome bit of information to my mental file on this planet’s bestiary, which already had gotten too long. Just then, a ferocious gust shook the cabin and dislodged one of the small creatures squeaking in the rafters. It tumbled almost to the floor before spreading its leathery wings enough to stabilize itself. Evidently a juvenile, it wasn’t much larger than my hand, with a sharp beak above a long, wrinkled neck like a turkey’s; it had fur rather than feathers. Cawing triumphantly, it managed to beat its wings enough to lift itself toward the ceiling.

“They’re harmless,” Ira said, looking over at me as he set down the pumice stone. “And beneficial. They keep the cabin free of venomous pests.”

Of course, I started to ask about those pests; but, on second thought, I just drank more cider and kept quiet. I really didn’t want to know.

Part 14: Loaded for Bear

On the morning after the blizzard, I woke to the cabin door banging shut after it let in a frigid blast of wind. Fragments of a dream fell away—something about a pickup truck on a narrow road in the mountains. I stretched and sat up, feeling stiff after another night of having slept on the rug in front of the fireplace. My head pounded, which I had to admit wasn’t a result of the sleeping arrangements.

“Note to self,” I muttered, “lay off the alien booze.”

Ira hung his snow-covered coat on a peg by the door, next to the coat he’d cut down to a smaller size for me. After yesterday’s creepy discussion of the local predators, I made sure to arm myself with one of the larger knives from Ira’s box before stepping outside. It fit into a loop of the coat’s belt like a dagger and left me looking suitably warlike—not that I had any plans to slay dragons on the way to the latrine.

Last night’s heavy snowfall came almost to my shoulders, with higher drifts in some places. It was a good thing for me that Ira had gone out first. I followed the path left by his much larger body until I got into the shelter of the trees. The branches hung low, but there wasn’t as much snow under them.

The outline of the trench that served as the latrine was clearly visible. And whatever might be said about Ira’s cooking, it didn’t induce constipation. My lower parts hadn’t gotten too chilled before I was finished. Shoveling dirt into the used area of the trench didn’t take long, either. Ira had helpfully left the shovel propped up on the dirt mound, making it easy to find. I decided this wasn’t too bad of a start to the day.

Well—it wasn’t bad until I heard a low growl from the trees on the other side of the trench, where large orange eyes gleamed. The bearlike warhagalla looked much bigger in real life than the pelt of its unfortunate relation that I’d been using as my bed. While it might have been an exaggeration to say the beast was slavering, I did see a glint of fangs that were much too long and sharp for my liking.

Trying not to look nervous, I backed up a step, holding the shovel in front of me like a medieval pikeman about to face a cavalry charge. The shovel’s handle was much longer and thicker than anything sized for humans, which made it somewhat useful as a weapon. I wasn’t entirely confident that the shovel would stay in one piece, though, as rusty as it looked.

Absurdly intruding on the scene, a winged rodent flew out from behind a tree, singing sweetly. It was considerably larger than the others I’d seen, resembling a great fat woodchuck. Flying slowly, with its bright pink wings pumping for all they were worth, it came close enough that I had the good view I’d wanted yesterday. Its melodic tones echoed from the snow-covered trees like a hymn at an outdoor church service. If I got eaten, I’d at least have music for my funeral.

With that thought, I finally lost control and hollered, “Oh, will you just shut up already!”

The rodent, looking startled, fell silent—just as the warhagalla sprang.

Part 15: All the Powers of the Earth and Sky

Maybe some people’s lives would have flashed before their eyes when a hungry wild beast leaped toward them, but that wasn’t what happened with me. Instead, it felt like a car wreck I had seen a few years ago, when I’d stopped my Chevy truck behind a line of cars at a red light on a divided four-lane road in Knoxville and some crazy guy came barreling around a curve toward me, going twice the speed limit. He was either going to hit my truck or the car in the lane beside me—there wasn’t time for anything else to happen—and all I could do for that fraction of a second was just sit there hoping it wouldn’t be me.

As it turned out, it wasn’t me, and I got lucky again with the warhagalla. The beast came close enough that I could see every detail of its open jaws and huge fangs before it chomped down on the flying rodent right next to me. Blood spattered all over the snow, barely missing my white fur coat. The warhagalla sat down almost within arm’s length of me, happily gnawing on its prey as its big brown tail thumped the frozen ground, just like a dog with a biscuit.

I edged away a few steps before dropping the shovel and pulling the knife from my belt instead. “Enjoy your breakfast, Rover,” I said under my breath, as I backed away into the trees. Looking to my left, I thought I saw more drops of blood, but I soon realized I was mistaken. A tiny patch of red flowers had started coming into bloom under one of the evergreens.

By the time I got back to the cabin, Ira was busy stoking the fire. He stood up as I hurried inside, still tightly clutching the knife, and dropped the heavy wooden bar across the door.

“A warhagalla in the trees.” Rather than putting the knife back in the box where I’d found it, I set it down on a shelf near my coat for easier access. “Looks like the beast didn’t get the memo about staying away from the cursed mountains.”

“They range widely. Most often they’re in other places.”

Ira didn’t seem too concerned as he tossed another log on the fire and poked at it, watching the flames rise. I walked toward him, thinking I should offer to help with other chores. After two days here, without slaying dragons or doing much else, I’d started to feel that I wasn’t earning my keep. I had been chosen to travel through the sorcerers’ portal, or so the Romanian woman had said; but I still had no clue why.

Then it occurred to me that my host might be able to tell me a little more about it, even though he wasn’t really a sorcerer.

“Just before I was taken through the magic portal,” I told Ira, “someone came up to me and said I’d been chosen because I was neither female nor male, drawing upon all the powers of the earth and sky. Do you have any idea what that might have meant?”

Apparently satisfied with the fire’s progress, Ira took a step away from it. “Dragons are of the sky, and people are of the earth,” he observed, stretching his long-limbed body and cracking his big knuckles.

Okay, that part wasn’t too hard, even for a caveman. “And powers?”

“We have few powers since the sorcerers left us. Probably there are other spellbooks besides the one here, but most of my people wouldn’t be able to read them. As for dragons, if they have any powers other than flight and breathing fire, I don’t know what those might be.”

Nothing came to my mind either. During the years I’d been working in the dragon-control business, no dragons had ever used magical powers to escape my nets.

After a minute or two passed, I was starting to think that Ira had nothing more to say. Then he added, in a distinctly sour tone, “There are some among my people who claim they are neither female nor male. That is another reason why we diminish.”

Well, dang—I hadn’t seen that coming. Yeah, I’d heard worse in Tennessee, but I hadn’t expected to get it from a furry giant on an alien planet.

“Whatever,” I said just as sourly, turning away as if to look out the window. Not that there was anything to see; yesterday’s thick layer of ice still covered the glass, although it looked like it was melting a bit.

I heard logs shifting and sparks popping as Ira poked the fire again, though it didn’t seem to need it. The cabin was warming up fairly well.

“If I had children, I would teach them to read,” Ira finally said, his tone softening. “I’d like to be a father, and I think I could be a good one. But I haven’t found a woman who wants to have children—most don’t, these days. I sometimes feel I can’t blame them. It’s true what they say, that this isn’t much of a world to bring a child into—but if we don’t even try, then how can anything get better?”

A loud crash like glass shattering came from outside the window, but the ice-encrusted pane was still in one piece. A big icicle, I supposed, falling from the roof and breaking on the hard ground. Another of this place’s many hazards. Ira probably had to dodge falling icicles all winter long.

I stepped away from the window, turning to face him again.

“I don’t know, Ira. Where I come from, some people say that we have to find our purpose in life, but I’ve never been convinced of that. For me, it feels like there are many small purposes to be found in each moment, and all I can do is sort through them as best I can.”

To be continued…