Dagger Key and Other Stories

Sitting beside her day after day, week after week, Hota grew discontented with his surroundings and thought this might be because Magali’s presence pointed up their shabbiness. He became assiduous in his cleaning, brought in flowers, new cushions for the chairs, and purchased prints to hang on the walls, brightening the long gray space. The footsteps and voices that sounded from the hallway irritated him and to mute them he hung blankets across the door. He dispersed the room’s stale odor with cachets he bought in the market. None of these improvements registered with Magali. For no reason he could grasp, she seemed interested only in the boards. Then one night while she slept, as he was pacing about, he noticed that the grain of the planking looked sharper than before, considerably sharper than could be expected to result from his daily dusting. Curious, he examined them in the light of an oil lamp and discovered that the patterns of the grain had, indeed, grown more pronounced, forming intricacies of dark lines in which it was possible to see almost shape. At least this was his initial impression. As he continued to peer at them, certain shapes came to dominate. He saw narrow wings replete with struts and vanes, sinuous scaled bodies, fanged reptilian heads. A multiplicity of dragons. Every plank bore such images, all cunningly devised. And more were emerging all the time, as if they had been buried beneath gray snow that was now thawing. Holding the lamp above his head, he studied them and began to think he was not looking at many dragons, but at countless depictions of one. There were similarities in the architecture of the scales and the birdlike profile, the…

“What do you see?”

Given a start, Hota yipped and spun about to face Magali, who had padded up behind him. Her dress was unbuttoned to her navel, exposing the swell of her breasts, and though her hair was tousled from sleep, her usual neutral stare was not in evidence. She looked animated, excited, and this acted to suppress the anxiety her nearness inspired in him. She repeated her question and he said, “Dragons…or maybe one dragon. I’m not sure. Is that what you see?”

She ignored the question. “Anything else?”

“No. Is there more?”

“There’s no end of things that can be seen.”

She stepped up beside him and ran a hand along one of the boards, as if caressing it, then pointed at one of the images. “Here. Do you see the way this fang juts out at an angle? What does it remind you of?”

Uncomprehending, he gazed at the board for the better part of a minute and then he saw it. “Griaule! Is it Griaule?”

“All this”—she made a sweeping gesture, her voice quavering as with strong emotion—“it’s his life. Ingrained within the trees that sprouted from his back. The entire inn is a record. All his days are written here.”

So, Hota thought, Benno had not lied. It was difficult to believe. In Hota’s experience, Benno had never exhibited an ounce of physical bravery, and the idea that he would chop down trees on Griaule’s back was laughable. It was equally unlikely that he could have hired anyone to do the cutting for him. Those few who claimed to have set foot upon the dragon spoke of climbing onto the tail—none had trespassed to the degree that Hota himself had. And yet he remembered the way Benno had gaped at Magali. Might that have been a recognition of sorts, evidence that Benno, being more familiar than most with dragons, had sensed her hidden nature?

“Whatever else there is to see…” Hota said. “Will I see it?”

“Who knows?” She returned to the bed and as she settled upon it, smoothing out her skirt beneath her, she said, “You’ve seen what’s necessary.”

“Why’s it necessary for me to see this much and no more? What’s the point?”

She reclined upon the bed, braced on an elbow. “So you’ll understand the extent of Griaule’s dominion. So you’ll accept it.”

This half-answer irritated him, but he was not sufficiently confident with her to express anger. “Why is that important? I already know he shapes our lives to some extent.”

“Knowing a thing is far from accepting it.”

“What are you talking about?”

She put an arm across her eyes and said nothing.

“Are you saying I need to make an acknowledgment of some sort? Why? Explain it to me.”