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Chapter Fifty-Two



S’ythreni’s tone was more careful than usual. “You were saying something about having seen everything before?”

“Indeed I was,” the dragon murmured. “Indeed I was.”

Ahearn uttered a satisfied huff at that response, but Druadaen did not hear concession in the dragon’s tone. It was a mix of wonder and surprise.

“Well,” it said, stirring, “there is always value in novelty.”

“By novelty, do you mean the unknown?”

The dragon stared at Elweyr briefly. “If that is what I meant, human, then that is what I would have said. This…is merely a novelty.”

Unless Druadaen was quite mistaken, the dragon’s use of the word “merely” had been profoundly forced.

The velene swished its mirror-tail once and, in a leap, was back on Druadaen’s wrist and reformed into a bracer. All in one fluid motion.

“Singular,” breathed the dragon, staring at the bracer. Then it looked up and frowned. “Why are you all still standing? It makes me weary, just looking at you. There, yes, sit; that’s better. More comfortable for you, less irritating for me.”

Umkhira frowned. “Are we still hostages, then?”

The dragon sighed. “Directness is not merely useful; it is a great good.” He glanced at the Lightstrider. “However, one can always have too much of a good thing.” He turned back to Druadaen. “Such as books. I suggest a new game. You regale me with all the facts you have learned about dragons while studying in your archive, and I will try to keep from dying of laughter.”

“Well,” Druadaen began with a shrug, “except for the ones that are strictly devoted to anatomy, they assert that all of you are…” He stumbled on the word. He didn’t think it would be suicidal to utter it, but still…

“We dragons are all what?” the great wyrm pressed. “Erudite? Witty? Charming? Immortal? Imposing?”

“No. Evil.”

Instead of a swift death, Druadaen received a choice look. “How amusing; some of my cousins have said the same about your breed. All of your breeds. But in fact, few creatures are inherently evil. Savage? That is a different matter. But I suspect our species have good and evil in equal measure.”

S’ythreni leaned forward, mischief in her eyes. “And are all dragons witty and erudite and immortal and imposing?”

“You left out charming.”

She laughed, but Umkhira was frowning. “Is all of that true?”

The dragon snorted. “None of it.”

“None?”

“None.” It sat back on his haunches. Its crest flattened, the tail slid along the floor with a grating hiss as it gathered beneath the heavily muscled body. “Shall I tell you what I find most irritating about my own breed?”

Druadaen noticed that Ahearn was apparently preparing to answer in the negative, so he asked hastily, “Your breed? Irritating? In what way?”

It snorted; a wisp of vapor—or smoke?—may have escaped one nostril. “Although we count centuries the way you count years, most of my kind remain as dull-witted and unimaginative as they were in their youth. They do acquire patience; a dragon which does not learn that lesson does not live very long. Your breeds see to that. But an appreciation for reflection and wit and the rich variety of this existence?” The great wyrm shook its head. “It never quickens in them. You would think after a few centuries of grabbing heifers and terrifying unwashed storekeepers and mud-covered dirt scratchers, they’d grow tired of it. It’s all quite monotonous, really.

“But no: as among your species, the majority of mine remain content within their narrow round of existence. Me? I cannot imagine enduring so limited a life. Why, just considering culinary variety alone, the willingness to settle for the limited fare of these lands”—he glanced sourly at Ahearn and Elweyr—“is quite beyond my comprehension.”

As Elweyr gulped audibly, Druadaen nodded. “So, you do eat our kind?”

“Eat your kind?” The dragon shuddered. “Some do, I suppose. But me?” Its great, horned brow furrowed. “Well, if I was starving, perhaps.”

“Oh?” Ahearn replied in a tone of injured pride rather than relief. “And what makes us such inferior fare?”

The dragon looked at him from the corner of its eyes. “You really want to know?”

“I do!”

“Well, firstly, you are to be congratulated for being bold enough to ask that question. Unfortunately, your boldness seems to be inversely proportionate to your common sense. Ah, well, it is often thus. But, as to the matter of consuming your kind:

“Firstly, you are very small: a morsel barely worth the work of catching. And you can be very difficult to catch, particularly once you get into tunnels, or basements, or other tight places. All that work and then almost no reward? Intolerable.”

“So which of us are most easily caught?” Elweyr asked in a voice at once horrified and fascinated.

The dragon looked at the roof of the cavern as if trying to summon memories from it. “Well, let’s see. The old ones.” The wyrm made a face. “Stringy. And they taste…odd. Then there are the heavy ones. They are particularly likely to be caught because many of them cannot reach—or fit into—those tight places where the rest of you take refuge.”

Ahearn scowled. “So you like your humans on the plump side, eh?”

The dragon recoiled. “I did not say that I prefer them. I said they were easy to catch. Unfortunately, they are…not pleasant to eat. Unless one has a taste for uncured bacon. Now, actual bacon, particularly after it has been seared…!” He snapped out of his dreamy distraction. “Let’s see, which others are easy to catch?”

Ahearn’s scowl became almost rageful as he put his hand on his sword hilt. Suddenly, terribly, Druadaen was sure that it was not a bluff. “Wyrm,” the swordsman said in a low tone, “whatever you say next, do not tell me that you prefer to catch children.”

The dragon, already surprised by the suicidal boldness of the swordsman’s reach for his weapon, started. “Hunt children? What do you think I am? A monster?”

Elweyr shrugged mildly. “Well, actually…”

“Ah-hrm. A poor choice of words on my part. Allow me to rephrase: Do you think I am an idiot? Firstly, nothing enrages any worthwhile species like the killing of its young. I assure you, all of my kind understand this quite well. Better than you’d think, I suspect.

“But a creature that demonstrates a preference for slaughtering pups, or spawn, or kids, or kittens, or children?” It shook its head. “Despite the many terms different breeds have for their young, the destruction of them is always the same to those who gave them life. They invariably resolve to slay such a monster at any cost. Including their own lives.”

Elweyr frowned. “But there are many accounts of dragons taking particular delight in slaughtering and eating humans. Whole towns of them.”

The dragon released a long sigh that carried out a few more wisps of vapor. “Well, what family is without a few bad eggs—literally? You have an expression for similar troublemakers among your own kind. I believe you call them hotheads.” The dragon cast a sideways glance. “Of course, among us, that too can be taken literally.”

Umkhira folded her arms. “So if you do not prey upon our races, what do you eat?”

The creature’s dark purple eyes narrowed in remembered delight. “Ah, cattle. Oh, horse will do, and sheep are acceptable, although one coughs up wool for days. But cattle. Particularly lightly broiled. I do not know why one of my breed would willingly dine on anything else.” It laid its chin upon folded paws. “But kine are hard to come by, now. Not without raising the countryside to arms.”

Elweyr raised an eyebrow. “I find it hard to believe that a rabble of farmers and herders would give you any pause.”

“No, they would not, but the army that comes after them is a different story. How do you think my breed is so diminished? That we succumbed to ‘old age’? No: it was fury. Our fury, for the most part. Fury at the memory of these plains when they were dark with wild herds of all sorts of delicious ruminants, when we hunted and fed without fear of reprisal.” The wyrm shrugged. “Over time, resentment against the various species which wrought those changes has made many of my kind, well, ‘hotheaded.’”

“So,” Ahearn summarized with ill-disguised satisfaction, “once a dragon is finished with the common folk, the army comes out and finishes him.”

The dragon shrugged again; its scales popped, creaked, and cracked. “It is suicide for my kind to start that cycle. And I suspect that is the intent of almost half of my kin who have succumbed to the temptation. Because the alternative is to fly farther and farther in search of less and less prey. In time, one must spend all one’s days asleep, lest one starve.”

Druadaen considered the dragon’s quandary and then wondered aloud. “What about mountain goats?”

“Adequate, but a bit gamey. Oh: You mean why don’t I hunt them?” Druadaen nodded. The dragon shook its head stiffly. “Do you have any idea how hard they are to catch? Leaping from rock to rock, and then stupidly plummeting into crevasses—from which I cannot safely escape by flying, mind you.

“Also, soaring about the mountains in search of prey is easily the most effective means of panicking the local settlers, who presume it signifies that I am preparing to wreak havoc upon them.” It snorted. “As if I would parade myself across the clouds to announce my intents! Either way, though, you will appreciate that hunting mountain goats brings far more trouble than it is worth.”

Druadaen almost rejected the idea that came to him; it was just too simple. Or was that its best feature? “What if we could save you the bother of hunting them yourself?”

The dragon raised one eyebrow. “Clearly, you have a proposition in mind.”

“I do.”

“Well, speak plainly and don’t keep me waiting. Otherwise, I might get bored and eat you after all.” It shuddered. “Despite the taste.”


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Framed