Match 1-8: NiTessine vs. Francisca
Be careful what you wish for...
Agent Keady had been waiting for this meeting most of his career. He had been shunned and ridiculed by his peers, reprimanded for “wasting time and department funds on fairy tales and tabloid fodder”, and lost partner after partner. It was all about to become worth it. Every single humiliation he had suffered was about to pay dividends.
Seated outside Section Chief Rumfield’s office, Keady realized that for the first time in years, he was reporting to his supervisor without fear of losing his job.
The administrative assistant’s intercom buzzed.
“Section Chief Rumfield will see you now.” she said.
Exhaling loudly, Keady stood and walked into the office.
***
Fifty minutes later, Section Chief Rumfield closed the file folder he was holding and sat it on his desk like he glad to rid his being of its presence. He then leaned forward, placing both elbows on the desk and held his head in his hands. After a pregnant pause he ran his fingers through his silvering hair and finally sat up and leaned back in his chair.
With a look that was equal parts anger, humiliation, and fear, he said to Keady:
“I guess I don’t need to tell you what this means.”
“No. The question now becomes, what do we do about it?”, Keady said, trying not to sound smug.
Rumfield turned his gaze to the ceiling.
Rumfield sat silently for several minutes. In the back of his mind, he always had a nagging fear that one of those crackpot theories might be true. Now it seemed that his fears were warranted.
****
Six weeks before his meeting with Rumfield, Keady was on his way to meet an old friend at a topless bar. Branch was Greenlander who immigrated to the US when he was 12. When he was of age, he joined the Navy and became a SEAL. He knocked around the world for several years, until a medical condition led to his discharge. At least, that was the story Branch had always told Keady. After his discharge, Branch joined the CIA and spent most of his career investigating various cult activities, mostly looking for ties between cult activity and international terrorist organizations. It was during a joint investigation with the FBI that Keady had met Branch. They had kept in touch for the last ten years or so, often comparing notes on an unofficial basis. Keady hadn’t heard from Branch in about a year. Then out of the blue, the phone rang at 1:00AM. Branch wanted Keady to come out and meet him for a drink. Keady had objected, but Branch was unusually insistent. Finally yielding, Keady now found himself in his pickup, trying not to hit the drunks stumbling about, going from bar to bar. Finally finding a parking spot in the back lot of the bar he was meeting Branch at, the passenger side door opened and Branch jumped in, just as Keady was about to remove the key from the ignition.
“Start it up, we gotta move!”, Branch urged.
Sensing a tinge of fear in Branch’s voice, Keady complied. After driving around for a few miles to make sure they weren’t being followed, Keady finally asked:
“Alright, now what the hell is this all about?”
Branch replied, “Do you remember what I told you when you asked where my interest in cults came from?”
Keady answered, “Yeah, wasn’t there a cult active in your home town? And weren’t there a few murders? Isn’t that why you guys left Greenland?”
“That was most of it. What I didn’t tell you is that most of the village was caught up in the cult. Man, it was bizarre. They would get into a frenzy during their rites that you have to see to believe. Nobody thought too much about it until the murders started, that’s when a lot of the villagers who weren’t part of the cult decided to get the hell out.
So most of us left. I went back to Greenland last month. My hometown has now been completely taken over by the cult. But, that isn’t the scary part. My cousin told me that they claimed to have found their god! At first, we were in disbelief until we started bumping into people who were talking about something being found up on one of the glaciers nearby. This cult worships some dragon-god, who they claim to be descended from the Midgard Serpent. So my cousin and I decided to go check it out. We hired some local Inuit guide….”
Keady interrupted him, “What the hell are you talking about? Dragon-god? You been drinking and playing D&D, or something? I can’t believe you dragged my sorry ass out of bed for this. I mean, I believe some pretty outlandish things…”
“Hear me out!”, Branch shouted. “I wouldn’t pull your leg about something like this!”
“Sorry, man, go ahead.”, said Keady.
Branch continued, “So we hire these Inuit guides to take us up on the glacier. After a solid 2 days of searching, we find the damn thing! At first, I thought it was a dinosaur, but then it dawned on me: If it was a dinosaur, its flesh and skin should have rotted off before Greenland iced over. But the proof was that the thing had wings! We scouted around, and found that the cult had been busy chipping away trying to dig out. After about an hour of climbing around, we figured it to be around 250 feet from snout to tail. It was about then that the cult showed up and started shooting. So we hopped on the Inuit’s sled and beat a hasty retreat down the mountain side. Pull over, I got some pictures.”
Pulling into a parking lot, Keady flipped the light on and looked at the pictures.
He was astounded. Stepping right out of legend, there it was: 200+ feet of scaled terror. It’s scales were a steely gray with an orange-red tinge. It’s head was easily the size of a full ton pickup truck and came complete with fangs as long as man’s leg. Even the pictures of it - dead and frozen no less - were enough to make Keady’s skin crawl. It was just so unnatural and menacing.
“This is amazing!”, Keady shouted.
“Oh wait, there is more. The cult plans on reviving it. Who knows what a dragon might do….”
“There you go again!”, Keady shouted.
“Look man, it’s a freaking dragon! If the thing exists at all, why couldn’t it be revived? Look, pack your bags, we’re going to Greenland.”
“Are you nuts? Rumfield wants to fire me as is.”
“Look, it’s simple. You go, you get proof. You tell Rumfield to go to hell.”
Keady reluctantly agreed, but could not leave for a few days due to some work that needed to be done.
***
The next morning, Keady called up a buddy in the satellite imaging group and requested several high resolution images of the glacier Branch had told him about. They were ready that afternoon. His pal, Ronson, brought them over personally.
‘Pretty amazing stuff! What is that, a dinosaur or something?”, asked Ronson.
“Yeah, something.”, replied Keady.
The images were astounding. Plain as day, the dragon could be seen, as if it had lain down to take a nap and had yet to wake.
“Hey, Ronson, before you go. Do me a favor. Until you hear otherwise from me, pull the images down from this same site every time the satellite passes over. I’m concerned about the site being disturbed.”
“No problemo, buddy!”, Ronson said as he left.
Keady went to Rumfield’s office to turn in his leave paperwork. When he got there, Rumfield looked at him suspiciously.
“So what is it this time? Bigfoot? Loch Ness monster?”, mocked Rumfield.
Keady just grinned and went home to pack.
***
The next morning found Keady and Branch on a plane quietly looking over the files on this particular cult. As Branch had told him earlier, Keady learned that this cult worshipped a dragon-god. The followers claim that the dragon was put into it’s current state of suspended animation by a bastard son of Thor, who had extracted it’s heart, causing it to fall into a slumber. This supposedly happened around the time that Christianity was coming to prominence in Greenland, so the cult was quickly driven underground, and has only recently resurfaced. At any rate, the followers believe that they only need to bring the dragon’s heart back into it’s presence and it will be re-absorbed and the dragon re-animated. Legend has it that the heart is hidden in plain view, somewhere near the glacier.
Branch handed Keady another sheet of paper. This document concerned a Christian church, the Church of the Blessed Herald. Apparently, in ancient times, this church was the primary reason the cult was driven underground. Ancient lore says there is a prophecy which even discusses the return of the dragon. A fragment of the prophecy reads:
“And the chosen one shall seek the Golden Herald.
And by doing so, his body and spirit shall be arrayed in the cloth of the Lord,
And his hands made mighty with the power of Him,
And his infernal foe shall be cast down.”
***
Keady and Branch arrived at the hotel and checked in. Branch soon made contact with the same Inuit guide who had taken him to the glacier on his last visit, and made arrangements for another trip.
Having a full day before the trip to the glacier, the next day was spent knocking around town looking for anything resembling a dragon heart. While walking around the town’s harbor, Keady was asked to take a picture of a family posing in front of what appeared to be a giant ball of twine. The ball was apparently a local oddity that drew a fair amount of attention.
Branch questioned the old man who owned it. The old man told him that it wasn’t twine at all, but rather material from old fishing nets. Further, the ball was started by his forefathers several hundred years ago, and had been passed down through the generations, father to son, each adding net material and growing the size of the ball. Branch and Keady looked at one another, each wondering what size a dragon heart might be.
***
The next morning, while preparing to meet with the Inuit guide, there was quite a buzz about the hotel lobby. Branch enquired and discovered that during the night, someone had cut apart the old man’s ball of net cording.
Wasting no time, they found the Inuit guide who quickly drove them to the base of the mountain where he kept his sleigh. About an hour into the trek, Keady asked Branch a question.
“What are we going to do if we find the dragon alive and well when we arrive?”
Branch thought for a moment, then replied, “I don’t know. At least we have the Inuit!”
Keady laughed as a
he started to form a mental image of the Inuit charging the dragon wielding a makeshift lance, from the back of his Caribou-drawn sleigh.
***
The second day of their journey found them observing the snow they were whisking past. Scores of tracks were present, some were from people on foot, and others were from Caribou-drawn sleighs. It was clear: the cult was assembling to wake the dragon.
It was near dawn when they closed in on the glacier. Branch instructed the Inuit to stay put behind a ridge of ice and drifting snow, where he would be out of sight. Keady and Branch headed up the slope. When they reached the top, they dropped down onto all fours and peered over the crest of the ridge. What they saw was straight out of fiction.
Surrounding the dragon were followers bearing torches, all dressed in long black and red robes. A man was standing in front of the dragon’s snout, holding up what Keady guessed to be the heart, as even at this distance, he could see it slowly starting to pump. Chants began, which quickly rose and fell, undulating like a serpent. Slowly, but with purpose, the follower carrying the heart made his way to the dragon’s left side. Pressing the heart up against the dragon’s ribcage, just behind the forelegs, the follower gave a mighty shove. In an instant, he and the heart disappeared, presumably into the dragon’s chest cavity.
At this point, the chanting stopped and the followers began to edge away. In a span of a few seconds since the follower/heart disappeared, loud sounds of cracking ice began to echo about the glacier. Then suddenly, the dragon raised his head and flexed his wings, sending shards of glacial ice into the air and all over the followers. Then the dragon began to feed. After snatching up a dozen or so of his black and red clad worshippers, the dragon belched forth a volley of hellfire which burnt the rest to a crisp.
It was then, Keady and Branch decided they had seen enough. Half sliding, half running down the slope as fast as they could, they shouted for the guide to make the sleigh ready. Jumping onto the sleigh as it set into motion, they urged the guide to push the Caribou as hard as he could. But it was too little, too late. The sound of giant beating wings was soon upon them. Wheeling, the dragon came down and snatched up all five Caribou in one fell swoop, taking the sleigh up into the air with them. Branch and Keady jumped immediately, but the Inuit was tangled in the reigns, and plunged a couple hundred feet to his presumed death when the dragon bit through the reins.
Seeing a small ravine to their left, Keady and Branch made a run for it. Upon entering the ravine, they discovered it had a steeply sloped floor which caused them to tumble downhill almost immediately. When they reached the bottom,
Keady looked up and caught the light of dawn reflecting from a golden statue set atop a church steeple.
Dragging Branch up by the arm, Keady made his way to the church doors and flung them open. He was stunned to find that the church as full. Suddenly the Priest shouted:
“Hurry! Our time of action is now! Bring forth the relics!”
Three men came forth. One bore a large round shield, the outward side black as pitch. The second bore a conical helm of bright steel and chainmail shirt, shiny as chrome. The third bore a large cross, made of a heavy wood and iron shod. They dressed Keady in the armor and place the cross to him. The priest blessed him, and bid him to go forth and defeat the dragon.
Oddly, Keady was not afraid. He stepped forth from the church just in time for the dragon to fly over. He ran out into the open and yelled something in a language he had never heard before. It was at this he noticed that cross had taken on a slightly different appearance. It no longer seemed to be a cross, but rather a giant war hammer, shod in steel and covered in runes, which he could now read. Mjolnir, they said.
Steadying himself, he spread his feet wide apart and raised his shield. The dragon again belched forth a torrent of hellfire. Behind the shield, Keady was untouched. The dragon passed and turned for another attack. Dropping the shield, Keady grasped the hammer with both hands and held it over his head. The dragon was coming full tilt, with it’s gaping jaws wide open. When the dragon was just close enough to snap it’s jaws shut around him, Keady deftly stepped to one side and struck a blow straight down onto the dragon’s head.
There was a clap of thunder and a flash of brilliant white light, Keady passed out.
***
Keady awoke to find himself looking at Branch.
Keady muttered, “What happened?”
“You killed the dragon, that’s what!”, exclaimed Branch.
***
About 5 weeks later, Keady was still savoring Rumfield’s silence when he asked:
“What got you? What made you believe?”
Rumfield slowly brought his gaze back down from the ceiling to Keady.
“DNA, satellite, eye witness accounts. Hell, it even showed up on NATO radar. How could I not believe it?”, muttered Rumfield. “Now I have a question for you. You must have always wanted one of these investigations of yours provide you with concrete proof you could show me and the world. You got it now. What has that done for you?”
Keady considered the question for a moment, then stood up and started for the door. He stopped, turned around, and said, “ I guess to be careful what you wish for.”