Chapter 28: The Terror Within

ONCE UPON A TIME, a great coldness fell upon the Village of Last Hope. It was not the coldness of winter. It was not the coldness of snow or ice. It was not the coldness of a forsaken lover. It was a coldness that chilled the heart and made the spine tingle. It was a coldness that raised bumps on the arms and sent chills down the neck. It was a coldness such that it made men’s blood run cold in their veins.

This coldness came because the Village of Last Hope lay in the shadow of the great and ancient dragon Malzath.

You have probably heard of Malzath. It was he who nested in the peaks of the Zathron Mountains. It was he who had scorched the earth of the South so that nothing was left but desert sands. It was he who froze the peaks of the mountains so the snow never melted. When he spread his wings to fly, great hurricanes swept the coasts of the seas. When he stomped in anger, the entire earth shook beneath his feet.

And the people of Last Hope dwelt in his shadow.

In truth, Malzath had never had an issue with the people of Last Hope. He scarcely knew they existed, but the people were terrified of him nonetheless. He was a great and terrible dragon, capable of devouring their little village in a single bite. With one claw he could open a rift in the earth that would swallow them whole. The fear of Malzath increased to the point that people began to whisper among themselves that something had to be done about Malzath.

When people live in the shadow of fear, grave things begin to happen. It began as the village council met. As the Elder stood to speak, a young man stood up and shouted, “What are you going to do about Malzath?” At once, the council house was filled with chaos as anger took root amidst the fear.

When he had regained some control, the elder spoke calmly and reassuringly. “There is nothing to be done about Malzath. If we simply ignore him, he will continue to ignore us. Let us not awaken the sleeping dragon.”

But the people were not happy with this answer. They called the elder weak. They said he had no principles. They even accused the elder of being in league with the dragon, plotting the downfall of the Village of Last Hope. They rebelled against the elder and drove him out of the village. Cast out, without hope or sustenance, the elder became a wandering pilgrim searching for the meaning of life.

Without an elder to lead them, the villagers turned to the shaman. “What shall we do about Malzath?” they demanded.

With no elder, the fear had grown among the people. Without a leader, they were blind and willing to follow anyone’s lead. But the shaman had learned from the example of the elder and declined to follow the wise course. Knowing the volatility of the people, he offered his solution timidly.

“Perhaps we should offer a sacrifice to Malzath,” the shaman said. “We will appease his anger and he will look kindly on us.”

This seemed like a good thing to the people of Last Hope. If they pleased the dragon, surely, he would leave them alone. And so the day of sacrifice was set.

The people of Last Hope were excited about the new plan up until the very moment when they staked a poor young boy to the mountain where they thought Malzath would find him. When the deed had been done, the people were saddened and filled with remorse. When they went to rescue the boy, he was gone. They turned their anger and guilt on the shaman and drove him from the village. The shaman fled with his life and became a hermit in a far-off forest.

The people next turned to the village wise woman. She, having seen what happened to the elder and the shaman, offered no solution, but slipped out of the village that night and became an itinerant midwife for the villages on the far side of the river.

And the people of Last Hope still dwelt in the shadow of Malzath.