dark one’s character.
Left behind in the Black Dragon’s haste was a travelling teaset and a much-used pipe. As the ice creature poked his claw into the bowl, he could feel remnants of life, for a dragon’s breath contains traces of his spirit.
These were fresh ashes. And ashes speak to dragons.
Ashes and dreams, dreams and ashes, time for the rotten to take their lashes, he thought, remembering one of his own poems. In his mind, he was no history professor; he was an undiscovered poet of rare talent.
Below him, little beetles covered in frost wriggled out of the ashes of the dragon’s campfire, trying to survive. The frost shook loose, revealing their black colouring.
How long ago had the Black Dragon been here? The Ice Serpent mulled it over – and had an answer sooner than he thought. Suddenly, he heard a rustling deeper in the cave …
His old heart quivering, the Swiss dragon darted back behind a rock, watching as a black shape entered the icy white den. The Chinese dragon, hairy and hobbled and small, was returning to his nesting spot – not abandoned at all – and immediately he knew something was wrong. His hair stood on edge, his nostrils flaring.
“Who hunts me?” asked the Chinese creature.
The Ice Serpent had nowhere to run. “I hunt a traitor,” he cried, and he leaped out and tackled the Black Dragon. The old serpents growled like two badgers, rolling about in the ice and snow, fighting feverishly.
The Ice Dragon dug his claws into the furred flesh of the Chinese beast and pried open its jaws. He then used the most disgusting of magics – he sucked out part of the Black Dragon’s spirit.
As the Black Dragon gasped for air, its spirit-traces were invisibly pulled out. Acting fast, the Black Dragon burst away in a flurry of dark sparks that bedazzled the white cave, transporting himself several metres outside the cave. He hobbled off down the mountain, getting away, though the trick had cost him energy.
The Ice Serpent was worse off. Older and weaker, he was in no condition to give chase.
But the icy beast had won something in the battle. In the split second that he had touched the jaws of the Black Dragon, he had tasted his spirit. It so happened the thought he touched upon was the memory of an encounter with, of all things …
Oh, to write this down, he thought. I must record this immediately.
Everything he knew went into his books, his History of Serpentkind. It was his obsession, an attempt to write all of the stories of the dragon race, and now to have found spirit-traces of the Black Dragon, the most despised of them all, was a great treasure.
Chasing the Black Dragon now was only a piece of the puzzle. The Ice Serpent had got something better than a turncoat. A new plan was forming in his head.
Hours later, he went back to a little café in the mountains for the warmth of its fire, though it did him little good. He quaked from the constant cold and his lips were turning blue, though he still managed to look human, which was something. At times his lizard skin could become visible, so he covered himself well these days. His old black trench coat, smelly and stained, fanned out around the chair. In its pockets were books of poetry and out-of-date travel writing from the 1950s Beat era. At the moment, however, he was doing far more important writing of his own.
He was jotting furiously in his book:
The Black Dragon must now be remembered not just for the freeing of the St George child, but also for this astounding discovery, which will ultimately be the undoing of the entire Dragonhunter tribe. This requires immediate and meticulous investigation. There are two groups of hunters, unknown to each other but known to the Black Dragon, and now to me, both in number and location. Extraordinary development. Unprecedented.
The Black Dragon had encountered these other hunters and the Ice Dragon had seen his memory of escaping without detection.
Herr Visser shivered and wheezed and laughed, and the woman who served him coffee looked at him with open disgust. Visser stroked his goatee proudly and clutched the book tightly against his chest.
“Some kind of secret you have there?” the waitress asked.
“Oh, I should say it is, yes,” snorted Visser in his gravel-throated German.
“You’re a writer?”
“Yes, yes. To be sure,” he said, looking away from her and hunching his shoulders. The place was nearly empty. Just two other travellers. Men. Photographers from the look of their gear.
“I like good writing,” said the waitress.
“You won’t find any of that here.” The Swiss professor smiled, showing coffee-stained teeth. “It’s a nasty little bit of writing.”
“Is it a scary story?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Let me take a look at it,” said the waitress curiously. “Let me be a sounding board. I might have some advice for you.”
“Oh, no doubt, yes,” mocked the professor. “When in doubt, go to a coffee counter in an out-of-the-way restaurant for literary criticism.”
“You don’t have to be rude about it,” the woman replied. “I read a lot of books of every kind and it gets a little dull around here, in case you haven’t noticed. Just let me take a look, give you some feedback.”
“The writing’s over!” Visser snarled and slammed the book down, away from her reach. “I want to watch some television and I want some privacy, thank you very kindly.” With that, he pulled from his pocket a little black and white television and turned his back on her.
“And warm up the coffee,” he ordered, his eyes fixed on the screen, shivering again. “It’s not hot enough, it doesn’t warm me at all!”
The woman wandered off, confusion and a bit of humour dancing in her eyes, as if she might be laughing at him.
The Ice Dragon’s chest was pounding. The discovery of the Black Dragon’s little secret, the peering eyes of the waitress, all of it was upsetting his old heart. He didn’t ask much of life, but he wanted things quiet and that was hard to get these days. He considered himself a person of simple pleasures: good music, good wine, the burning of a good woman now and then. He liked to think, to prepare a little bit of a meal for his mind. And he liked privacy when it came to writing. Was that so much to ask?
He scratched at his black turtleneck sweater, feeling tightness at his throat. Through his thin, dark, half-circle eyeglasses, he glanced back at the waitress who had gone into some private room. Good. He relaxed a bit.
He usually liked to be left alone. And yet, there was something in her interest that was exciting. His nervousness came out of anger. He felt a sudden, careless desire to tell the waitress everything about himself. He was dying, he knew that, and he just wanted someone to know who he was, someone to understand. No more hiding.
And what would he say to her? What would she care to know?
He played the flute. He was a horrid player, but his magic made people hear the music as if he were a great master.
He
