Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 22 of 30

Prince Charming rode into town and did his business fast. He bought salt, nails, and a spool of new cord for the tower line. But under all of it he kept thinking about the pot on the ridge. He had never lit the smoke from far away. He had never tested whether the dragon would come if the signal rose while he stood a day's ride from the forest. If the princess struck a match tomorrow and no wings answered, a hunter could reach the mountain, or a frightened dragon could kill a man who meant no harm. He turned his horse around at the inn door and rode back before dark. He did not go home. He rode past his own gate and up to the tower and told the princess what he wanted. He would leave again at first light and ride two ridges out. At noon he would light his chimney black. She would watch the mountain from her platform. If the dragon came to the ridge pot, she would send a jewel bird after him with a scale in its claws. If the dragon did not come, she would send the bird empty, and he would ride home and start over. She agreed and packed the oiled rag tight in her own pot in case they needed a second call. He rode out before the sun cleared the trees. Two ridges took him past noon. He built a small fire in a farmer's field, fed it green pine until the smoke ran black, and stood back. He could not see his own chimney from here. He could not see the mountain. He could only wait. An hour passed. He kicked dirt on the fire and sat on a stone and watched the sky above the road. Then one of the jewel birds came down through the light, crystal wings flashing, and dropped a black scale into the grass at his feet. The dragon had come. The signal had carried across two ridges of forest and open country, and the emberwing had answered a smoke it could see but a man it could not. He rode home slower, the scale warm in his pocket. At the tower the princess told him the dragon had landed on the ridge, waited a full count of a hundred, and flown back up when no second smoke followed. It had not been angry. It had done the work. Prince Charming climbed down from the horse and understood what he had bought. He could leave the forest now. He could go to the next town, or the town after that, and the mountain would still be watched. But the dragon had answered a call from a man it could not see, and that meant the next stranger who lit a fire in the wrong field might bring it down on nothing.