Chapter 15 #2
I think a lot of the humanity I saw in the world of 1300 and 1301 was my own projection. How I chose to see things was largely
dictated by my needs of survival. I had to believe there was a reason for my initial capture and beating in Greenwich—a brutal
misunderstanding, sure, but at least a form of understanding had occurred in independent minds. I told myself over and over
again that surely my perceptions were biased and I just didn’t understand where everyone else was coming from. I’ve done that
my whole life actually—expected more from people, convinced of a greater substance operating within them that I just didn’t
understand and someday, with the right amount of empathy, would. But I realized then, as I watched hundreds of men throw themselves
headfirst into a rushing flood of lava, that there wasn’t a single thought in their minds. Like time itself, their standard
mode of operation was to press forward unceasingly.
The horses swelled and burst like powder kegs.
The men first lost their legs and arms like twiggy little spiders, then their stubborn torsos, their screaming teethy heads, their battle cries transforming into frothy childlike hoots.
With Prince Edward, we had caught the dragon at the tail end of its cycle, but now the dragon was white-hot, electric even, his eyes white like meteors, his fire and lava a pole, a sword, a constant funnel of destruction, turning and swirling all over the place like the hands on a mixed-up clock.
The future and the past collided. I jumped out of the way of a flaming Toyota, a rapid splash of melted computers, a radiator, an oil barrel, a garden trellis.
Soldiers fired arrows, but these evaporated in midair. The catapult fired a boulder but it crumbled apart like tossed sand.
Still it was the first thing that had managed to touch the dragon and he paused. He licked clean his teeth like a dog and
looked along the ridge, taking in all the archers and their fruitless arrows and a second wave of infantry getting ready.
When the dragon noticed me among the lineup, I swear he winked.
“We’ve got to get back,” I said to Simon.
I pulled him by the arm, hauling us away.
“Get down!” We jumped off the ridge of the crater into the forest just as a mouthful of new molten lava flew through the air.
Trees caught fire, the crater began its expansion.
We lay flat on the ground as the earth shifted and sunk like a porous blanket.
What had been stable was now slope. Uprooted trees, rocks, animals, soldiers all tumbled down around us, falling into the dragon and his swirling vortex drilling deeper into the earth.
Some soldiers took advantage of the slope and came sprinting down it, their gallantry undeterred.
A new infantry charged out from the forest, another hundred men ready and willing.
They sprinted and tumbled, others simply leapt and soared.
Another hundred men, then another hundred men.
An endless supply of brawn. The men in the battalion, the men in the nightclub, the men at the office—all they could do was press forward.
All this death, all this destruction—the pointlessness of it was just as the dragon had explained.
It felt the same as it had then. It felt the same as it did now. This was the past.
For the first time in a year I thought about Pringles. I thought about a Big Mac, a bacon and egg McMuffin. I thought about
Snickers chocolate bars, Maoam Pinballs, Jaffa Cakes, a double-shot espresso and a flat white and a croissant and pizza and
Greggs and Pret and Diet Coke, sertraline, Adderall, paracetamol, finasteride, and cigarettes, and clotted cream on scones,
muffins, pickles, pornography, and couches—I hadn’t sat on a couch in a year, I hadn’t been comfortable in a year and I wanted
to check my email, I wanted to charge my phone, I wanted to watch TV, take multivitamins, take photos, take drugs, think about
going to the gym, text people I hated, forget birthdays, drive a car when I knew I could walk instead. I wanted to smell petrol
and polluted rivers. I wanted palm oil and corn syrup. I wanted an army of British bankers and Californian private equity
vampires, not these unshaved, unwashed barbarians.
“I have to go,” I said.
Simon didn’t hear me. He was coaxing a lamb into his arms to save it from tumbling into the dragon’s void.
It was bleating and dangling from a ledge.
Simon reached and flexed. Debris continued to fall.
I pulled myself up, then reached and grabbed Simon and the lamb and together we scooted carefully away, finally reaching a point where the ground evened out.
The dragon already sounded farther away from us, his destruction echoing up from the deepening well as the avalanche of men continued.
Different factions huddled and shouted orders, made plans and arrangements, which proved futile once they started charging and the ground slipped out from under them.
Instinctively—I don’t know what instinct—I stood up and went to follow them, taking a step toward the dragon.
Simon grabbed my arm and yanked me back to the ground with him.
He clutched me to his chest along with the lamb and I couldn’t speak, only strain.
Something was fanning its wings inside me.
“Just stay, George,” Simon said. I think he even said “Shhh.” There were dents and divots where our clunky armor pressed against each other.
The lamb’s tight little curls reflected in them.
“I have to go,” I said once more.
“Go where?” said Simon. “We have to get back to the smallholding. We’ve got to get out of here. There’s nothing we can do.”
Violently, I broke free from his embrace and stood up. Embarrassed with myself, I turned my back to him, ran a hand through
my hair, shifted my weight, and checked the sword holstered at my side. Then something dawned on me, a new idea. Confidently,
I turned back around to face Simon with the lamb, both looking up at me bewildered. I motioned in the direction of the crater.
It took every muscle in my throat, every falsity in my mind to sound brave, to sound noble, to not sound like the convenient
excuse I knew I had tricked my heart into thinking it wasn’t. “That kid,” I said. “I have to save that little boy. I have
to go.”