Dragon Quest - I - Chapter 3, Part 2

2 - The Minstrel of Maira (pp98-109)

Aleph groaned and slowly opened his eyes. Above him, he could barely make out some blackened beams. It took him several moments before he realized he was looking at a ceiling.

“You’re finally awake,” said a joyful-sounding voice. It belonged to another man in the room, in his mid-forties, as he lit some candles and gazed down at Aleph. “Thought you were a goner. Been sleeping three days,” he said.

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Where am I? -  Aleph was about to ask as he sat up, but instead yelled out when a shock of pain ran through his entire body.

“This is the village of Maira,” he replied to the unasked question, smiling personably.

Aleph suddenly noticed the smell of wet mold and alcohol. This must be a basement, he realized. He tried to look himself over, but every small movement shook him with pain. Aleph tried to say something, but he hurt so bad he couldn’t even open his mouth.

His face was covered in bandages. His forehead, cheeks and chin were swollen and bruised. Aleph’s hands and arms, chest, and shoulders were tightly wrapped as well, and a splint was stuck to his right leg. It must have been broken.

“A young traveler found you all knotted up by the riverbank and carried you back here. In the middle of the night,” the man explained.

A traveler…? Aleph vaguely recalled tumbling down the cliff and hitting the ground hard. His back hit a rock, and he got the feeling he had been thrown into the river. He remembered nothing after that.

“Mmhm, tall boy, he was. Long hair down to his waist, tied back. Carried a long sword, too.”

Aleph could hardly believe it. It sounded just like the youth that had saved him from the giant scorpion back in the desert.

“He just said, ‘Take care of him’, and went off like that. Didn’t even tell me his name,” he continued.

100

That settled it. That makes twice Aleph had been saved by him.

“I take it you were attacked by the Dragonlord’s minions? Those Black Shadow boys, right? Just after that young man left, they came and attacked the village. They searched up and down for you, but you’d been hidden here in this secret cellar the whole time, so they couldn’t find a hair. Used once for bootlegging liquor, I heard… Well, it’s just a storage room now, at any rate.”

So that was it. They were the Black Shadows, led by the shadow knight, the same group that had attacked Radatome and were said to have killed Princess Laura. Anger began to build again in Aleph’s chest.

“Name’s Manuel, I operate the pub here in Maira. Used to be a minstrel - a bad one, mind - travelled all over Alefgaard. Then about ten years ago, I lost this when I was attacked by a monster - “ he indicated his right leg, “ - and I had to quit my wanderings.”

I’m Aleph - or so he tried to say, but the hurt in his jaw was too much, and he only contorted his face in pain.

“Don’t push it, friend. This is a hot springs town, y’know. You can feel free to heal up using the springs whenever you can make it over there. Give it a while, and you’ll see, in two or three months you’ll be good as new.”

Leaving Aleph with that, Manuel clambered up the ladder above, awkwardly dragging his right leg behind.

It was ten days later before Manuel informed Aleph of everything he couldn’t remember. Once Aleph could finally sit up in bed and move his mouth, his recovery began.

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Manuel came down to the cellar three times every day, at almost the exact same time, bringing meals for Aleph. He would also come down once more after dinner to change Aleph’s bandages and re-apply a poultice. Manuel wouldn’t even let his wife help; it was as if he felt it were his responsibility alone.

On evening after Manuel had changed Aleph’s bandages, Aleph told Manuel of the reason for his travels. Aleph asked whether or not he had any information about the three artifacts that Loto had entrusted to the three sages.

“Loto, huh…” Manuel appeared surprised, and stared at Aleph. His friendly demeanor had all but vanished from his face.

“I figured there was some reason those shadows were searching the village so hard, but I never thought… So you’re a descendant, then.”

“Please, anything you can tell me. You’ve been all over Alefgaard, right?”

“You’re not wrong,” Manuel mumbled as he stroked his chin and inclined his head.

“Now that you mention it, my grandpa told me something when I was a lad. He was a minstrel like myself, see? He mentioned something about a Rain Shrine to the northwest of here, by the sea.”

“What’s a Rain Shrine?”

“A fearsome, thousand-year old witch is said to live there.”

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“A thousand? Really?”

“Well, she’s been around for hundreds of years at least, so people just call her the Thousand Year Witch. She’s fond of collecting jewels, they say. She might not have one of Loto’s artifacts, but she might know something, anyhow.”

“Northwest of here…” Aleph immediately pulled out his old map and attempted to confirm the shrine’s whereabouts. Manuel looked intensely at the map.

“Truth is… I got something else to ask you. Sorry to say, but I took a look inside your bag while you were unconscious. Thought I’d try to dry out your things. That’s when I saw your map and the life stone…”

“The what stone?”

“That pretty blue rock you got in there.”

“This?” asked Aleph, and pulled out the cloth-wrapped jewel given to him by his father from his sack.

“Where’d you get it?” asked Manuel.

“I’ve had it since I was born. Both of them,” replied Aleph.

“Since you were born? Didn’t you say you were from Radatome, though?”

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“That’s right. But I wasn’t born there, I was orphaned.”

“So someone found you?”

“Right after I was born. In the mountains near Radatome,” Aleph explained. He continued on, telling Manuel about what Gaul had told him. As he did, Manuel’s eyes gradually grew more and more excited.

“I see, I see… So you had already lost the chimera’s wing at that time, then?”

“Wing? I don’t know,” Aleph shook his head, confused.

“Well, from where I sit, seems like the chimera’s wing got used up taking you from Domdora to the Radatome mountains,” stated Manuel.

“What do you mean, from Domdora?”

“Well, I thought it might be the case when I saw your map and the life stone, but that tears it. We’ve actually met once before. On the day you were born,” said Manuel gravely.

“What!?” yelled Aleph suddenly, then, “Ow-ow-ow!” as pain shot through him and contorted his face. “How could we have met before?”

104

“In Domdora.”

“How is that possible?”

“It was fifteen years ago - the Month of Kings, the Day of Kings…”

At the time, Manuel was traveling with a caravan, walking from town to town, making money entertaining to support himself.

The caravan was heading back from Rimuldar to Manuel’s home of Maira. On the way, about ten days out from their destination, the caravan was suddenly attacked by a group of a dozen werewolves, and they were forced to take up weapons and defend themselves.

But Manuel, unaccustomed to hand-to-hand combat, was chased off by the werewolves and wound up stranded deep within a forest. The moment he managed to escape from the beasts, he was suddenly attacked from above by a creature with the body of a great snake and the head and wings of a vulture. It was a chimera, a monster made with dark magic by combining the bodies of different animals. Manuel went pale and began to pray to the spirit Rubiss, quaking with fright.

Suddenly, a white ball came out of nowhere and slammed into the chimera. It was a white owl. The owl soared up in the sky, turned around, and then shot out bright yellow beams of light from both of its eyes. The light struck the chimera, and it burst into flame, like it was struck by a bolt of lightning. It crashed at Manuel’s feet, twitched two or three times, and died.

The owl eventually landed in front of Manuel and used its sharp beak to rend the wings from the chimera, plucking two feathers - one from the left, one from the right - and laid them down before him.

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A chimera who dies from a lightning strike, and whose wings are plucked of two feathers, holds mysterious power. If one throws the wing up in the air as hard as they can, it will fly the one who threw it far away in an instant.

“Are you telling me I can go home with this?” he asked of the owl, holding the wings.

‘I have come to thee as a servant of the Great Spirit Rubiss,’ the owl spoke, using the words of man.

He gave Manuel a directive: ‘Use one wing, and you will arrive at the village of Domdora. Ten paces from where you land will be a house. You will leave the other wing there.’

“So, I used the wing, landed in Domdora, found the house, placed the other wing in the hand of a newborn baby boy, and left.”

“And you think I was the boy?”

Manuel looked into Aleph’s face and nodded yes.

“But that night, I heard Domdora had been attacked by the Dragonlord,” he said darkly, and breathed a sigh.

Aleph recalled hearing from someone that many years ago, the people of Domdora had been slaughtered and the village razed to the ground.

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“Seems like a miracle that the boy and his mother managed to escape with that chimera’s wing…”

“Did you know my parents? Did they tell you their names!?”

“No, sorry,” Manuel apologized, lowering his head. “But I thought about that boy quite a bit in those days.”

“Then what about the house? Where in Domdora was the house I was born?”

“Hmm, somewhere around the town square, I should think. I’m sorry, I don’t remember well,” he said, looking to the map and life stone in Aleph’s hands.

“You know, I wasn’t the only one that came to that house that night. There were two other guests that arrived before I did. One was a great wizard that came down from Garai, and the other was a priest from north of Melkid. Hear tell the wizard gave you the map, and the priest the stone, and then they both left without a word.”

“I see…” Aleph said, looking at the two gifts.

“But for that child to have survived - you must have certainly been born for a special purpose, lad,” said Manuel as he stared at Aleph with a moved expression.

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“Oh, right!” he suddenly exclaimed, slapping his thigh. He climbed upstairs and returned with a thickly lacquered jewelry box. Bits of the lacquer had peeled away, and the lid was elaborately carved.

“I’ll give you this,” said Manuel as he opened the lid. “It’ll be sure to save your life one day.” He removed a ceramic flute, shaped like a pidgeon. It was a pale eggshell white and beautifully formed. “The fairy flute,” he explained.

“The fairies made a flute?” asked Aleph, gazing at the instrument in wonder. Exquisite flowers were engraved on its side.

“That flute was once used to defend this village from monsters,” Manuel stated.

“Really?”

“About two hundred years ago. That’s one of the instruments made by the fae folk in order to protect themselves.”

Like Garai’s silver harp, recalled Aleph. Unwittingly, he remembered the town of Garai, and the face of the beautiful Cecille.

“No clue how my ancestors got a hold of it, but a lot of us were minstrels, so I assume he just picked it up somewhere along his travels. It’s been here all this time.”

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After the great quake two hundred years ago, many towns and villages were attacked by the Dragonlord’s armies and by creatures made giant and dire by his magic. Maira was no exception.

Legend says that when the monsters reached the gates of Maira, Manuel’s ancestor prayed to Rubiss, put the fairy flute to his lips, and began to play. Upon hearing the music, the monsters began to flee, and one of them, a giant, humanoid stone creature, fell asleep on the spot.

Since then, monsters rarely came to attack Maira, and Maira has managed to survive ever since.

“So that’s how Maira was the only one of the smaller towns that made it this long. But why would you give the flute to me, if it's so important?”

“Because you’re Loto’s descendant. Because I want you to defeat the Dragonlord and bring peace back to Alefgaard as soon as possible. Because I want my son to be able to follow in my footsteps and travel the world,” replied Manuel, smiling.

“Thank you,” said Aleph simply, gripping the flute.

It wasn’t until the Month of the Phoenix had changed into the Month of Ishtar, the greenest month of the year, when Aleph could finally walk about with the aid of a staff.

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Maira was a small village of only about two hundred homes, surrounded on all four sides by forest. Manuel’s home was near the town’s entrance. North of there was the apothecary and the town well, and a bit further was the town square. The square held goods and weapons shops, and at the northern end of town held the bubbling hot springs and public bath.

Manuel’s son, a boy of seven years, helped Aleph to walk to the springs every day to heal his wounds. Everyone in the village was very kind.

When the splint finally came off, Aleph began to visit the village mage to practice his spells. Aleph had known that the village mage used to train with his old master, the shaman of Radatome, Mercer. With the mage’s guidance, Aleph’s magic reached a new height. He could now finally make use of the Begirama spell, one he had never performed before.

By the time Aleph’s wounds had completely healed and he had bought a suit of steel armor and a steel helm, the summer had grown hot, but he was finally ready to leave. The Month of Ishtar had changed to the Month of Queens, now nearly the Month of the Minotauros.