Balanath’s Struggle The days and weeks following the multiple surgeries to save his life passed in a blur of pain and frustration for Balanath. Every time he tried to stand up, his remaining legs trembled under him, shaking with the effort. He had been the most agile and fastest of the sand dragons, but now he couldn’t make it across the room. To make matters worse, Ka was missing, and he couldn’t remember what had happened. The doctors said it wasn’t uncommon for the mind to block-out a traumatic injury for several hours before and after the event that caused the injury. The warm bed of soft sand under him gave little comfort as he stared blankly at the walls of the hospital room and ignored the world outside. Visitors came and went in an endless parade of sympathy, but he ignored them all. Even the Mother Dragon's attempts to console him and get him to try walking again failed to penetrate the dark despair of his mind. Another month passed, with the pain only growing worse. His wound was not healing correctly and causing additional discomfort. By the end of the first week of the second month, and still with no word of what happened to Ka, Balanath’s depression had worsened until he was no longer taking food. Visitors had fallen to the point that only the doctors and nurses entered his room to administer pain medications. It wasn’t a surprise that he wasn’t receiving any more visitors, nobody wanted to come watch a dragon dying from grief and depression, so it was a surprise when the sound of many people and a few dragons entered the room. He could sense someone kneel down next to him. Through barely open eyes he made out the figure of a large teenager, and beyond him two red dragons and twelve imposing Wyra men. It took a few moments to place the boy as Garteth – Basteth’s old Rider. Basteth was the large copper dragon of the Teth Clan that had tried to murder Ka some months earlier in the arena. “We’re taking you out of here,” said the boy. Balanath closed his eyes. He understood what was happening, but not why the task had fallen to Garteth. Dying dragons were often taken out to the desert and left on a dune so they could see the sky as death took them. He had seen it happen before, but usually with elderly dragons when both dragon and rider were near death. It would be nice to look out over the desert that he and Ka had made so many good memories. He had always thought that one day when they were old and life was drawing to a close, they would sit together under the night sky as they prepared for the journey to the Land of the Ancestors. “Have they ended the search for Ka?” asked Balanath, a tear falling from his closed eyes. He felt a hand brush the side of his face. “King Gethadar has called off the search,” Garteth replied softly. “But, the Seth still have a patrol to the far south, and the Teth another to the far west.” “Why have they sent you?” whispered Balanath. “I owe Kanath a debt for the mercy he showed Basteth.” Balanath pulled away from the boy's attempt to comfort him. Garteth had probably asked to be the one to escort him out to the desert to pay the debt that didn’t actually exist. The twelve Wyra men gathered around him. They were surprisingly gentle as they lifted him into the litter tied between the two Red Dragons. He felt a sense of excitement pushing through the despair at the thought that he would soon feel the sun on his scales again. Was it daytime? He had no idea. If it was, he would wait for night to let death take him. Some of his best memories with Ka had been at night when they lay under the stars talking softly. Ka had always been so inquisitive and full of questions. Some of the questions were quite profound, but many others had been boyish questions. He remembered one such question that had stuck with him. Ka had asked, “Why can’t we see our eyes?” He always let Ka talk himself out during those late night conversations until he fell asleep, then wrapped around the boy to safeguard him from the dangers of the desert as he slept. Most dragons were only four or five years older than their Rider, but Balanath was twelve years older at the time of Ka’s birth. Their relationship had reached beyond an older brother with Ka often referring to Balanath as his father. He had taken Ka once a month to visit his birth parents as the contract required for wild wyrlings given to the dragons to raise as Riders, but then shortly after Ka turned six, the village where Ka’s birth parents lived vanished without a word. It wasn’t uncommon for a Wyra village to migrate for better farming, water supply, or hunting grounds, but they usually gave some warning first. Ka had poked through the abandoned huts, and finding nothing of interest, turned to Balanath and shrugged. “Can we go home?” That Ka had felt nothing for his Wyra family abandoning him angered Balanath. He wasn’t angry at the boy, but at his family for not making any attempt during those years to build a relationship with Ka. Most villages were proud and grateful to have a Rider chosen from their village. Balanath marked several of the trees around the abandoned village before they left with a symbol that meant, ‘this place is no longer protected by the dragons.’ Ka never spoke of his Wyra family again, and by the time he was ten, Balanath suspected he didn’t even remember them. The sudden stabbing of light against his eyelids told him they had reached the city gates. He didn’t open his eyes, there was nothing left in the city he needed to see. He heard a keening sound above on the city walls and knew the Nath Clan was bidding him safe journey to the Land of the Ancestors. He still didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t want to see their faces. They hadn’t voiced any blame for the loss of Ka, they knew he loved Ka so much that he must have held his ground to protect him, and that he had lost a leg in the process. But still, without knowing for certain what had happened, there would be some lingering doubt whether he had fought hard enough. He didn’t want to see that doubt in their eyes. The sun that only moments before had been a blessing now turned to another source of depression for Balanath. If Ka could not enjoy the sun on his face, why should he be permitted to feel its warmth? He rolled onto his side to deny himself as much of the sun as he could. It would be over soon. He felt the gait of the two Red Dragons carrying him change, they were walking in the sand now. His mind sank back into memories of Ka. He remembered Ka’s first steps. His chubby little legs struggling as he took two steps and fell against him, and the gleeful little laugh he made grasping onto his long whiskers with tiny but strong hands. He remembered Ka’s first word. It was ‘no’, and remained his favorite word for months. And then, when he was woken in the middle of the night by Ka coughing horribly, he’d rushed to Ka’s crib and lifted him out by the special harness toddlers wore so the dragons could safely pick them up. He was out of the nursery with Ka like a flash of silver lightning before the Mother Dragon could even lift her head. When he arrived at the emergency room, there were several dozen other dragons with toddlers from every Clan hanging from their mouths. He returned to the nursery four hours later with a very sleepy Ka. The Mother Dragon was sitting up and watched him cross the nursery and hand Ka to one of the Wyra mothers. He opened his mouth wider and the woman took a jar of medicine he’d gotten from the hospital. “It’s cough cream, you rub it on his chest every eight hours,” Balanath informed her. The woman wiped the dragon slobber off the jar before setting it up on a shelf with at least thirty jars of the exact same cough cream. “How much did the cough cream cost?” asked the Mother Dragon. Balanath turned to face the angry dragon. “Five silver coins,” he replied. “We get ten jars wholesale for two silver coins,” she said. “It’s ridiculously expensive if you buy it from the emergency room.” Balanath’s mouth dropped open. “And how much did the visit to the emergency room cost?” she continued. Balanath’s tail dropped to the floor as he said, “fifteen silver coins.” “And how much silver do you have?” He looked down at the soft sand of the nursery and wished he could burrow down and not come up for a month. “None.” The Mother Dragon nodded once, she knew the exact amount everyone had in the horde of gold and silver buried under the sand she lay on. “I will send payment to the hospital for the bill, but you are on diaper washing duty until further notice, and next time, he better have blood coming from his eyes and purple smoke pouring out of his ears before you take him out of here without checking with me or one of the Wyra mothers first.” “Yes, Mother.” The month on diaper duty had been horrible, the diapers never stopped coming. But now, the memory made him smile. All the memories with Ka made him smile. He hadn’t smiled much before Ka was born, he’d had very few prospects for the future. He was small for a silver dragon and would never be able to carry a full grown Wyra man. The Wyra were the dragon people and had evolved to live side by side with dragons. But then he had been offered Ka. Ka was the smallest baby anyone had ever seen. The Mother Dragon predicted he would only reach 6-foot, or maybe 6-2, but that was the perfect size for a small dragon. A shadow crossed over his eyes and the air became cool. He could hear water falling from above. He opened his eyes. They were entering a cave. He lifted his head. It was a cave he knew well. He and Ka had spent years clearing the avalanche that had buried this cave away for a thousand years. It was the cave Ka had given to Basteth. There were three main chambers to the cave, the outer entrance with a stone alter against the wall where services had probably been held in the ancient past, the central cavern with a pool of water fed by a spring bubbling up from under the pool, and the rear chamber with living spaces, a deep cooking hearth, and two ledges just the right size for a dragon and rider to sleep. This was not where he’d thought they were going. The two Red Dragons carried him through the first chamber and into the second chamber. Balanath didn’t bother trying to resist as they lowered him into the bathing pool. He already knew what their plan was, but it was nice to be in the pool again. He and Ka had spent many days playing and splashing each other in this pool. Garteth approached the pool and crouched down next to Balanath. “I’m sorry, you wouldn’t have agreed to come if I would have told you where we were going.” “Gar, the water isn’t magic.” Balanath sunk beneath the surface of the water and blew a few water bubbles. When Ka had been little and Balanath had taken him to the bathing pools used by the nursery, Ka had always giggled with glee when he’d blown bubbles in the water. “Yes, it is. I can prove it,” argued Garteth. Balanath’s eyes flicked to the Red Dragon standing next to the pool. “Aren’t you a doctor? And you’re just going along with kidnapping me?” “I introduced myself to you three weeks ago, I’m Doctor Tealmar. I’m in charge of your post-surgery recovery.” “You’re a kidnapper,” replied Balanath. The Red Dragon smiled patiently. “I didn’t kidnap you. You stopped talking to your visitors, you stare at the wall all day, you won’t get up and exercise, and now you’ve stopped eating. You’ve forced me to take a more radical recovery plan than normal, and it’s obviously working. Look at you, blowing bubbles and being downright chatty. We’ll stick with this plan for a while.” “I want to go to the Land of the Ancestors and be with Ka,” said Balanath. Doctor Teal shook his head. “In my medical opinion, you are healthy and can easily recover. I won’t sign off on that as an option.” “You can’t make me eat,” replied Balanath petulantly. “Actually, I can. The hematology department has just recently discovered a way for me to force food directly into your veins. Don’t challenge me on this, I will do it.” Balanath splashed water at the doctor the way he used to with Ka, and then sank back beneath the surface of the water. “There we go, that’s the fighting spirit I want to see.” The doctor turned his head to the other younger Red Dragon. “Keep him in the pool. He’s weak as a hatchling from not eating, so it should be easy. And set some food out for him. If he doesn’t eat it, we’ll do it the hard way.”