Ben watched the dragon nuzzle at a Fire Spring, drinking the burning waters, inhaling the flames slowly. “Why are you telling me all of this?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
The dragon looked up. “Because you’re here.” The snout dipped. “Why are you here, by the way?”
Ben hesitated, remembering suddenly what had brought him. “Well…”
“Oh, yes.” The dragon cut him short. “You’re Landover’s newest King. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I haven’t been at it very long.”
“No, I assume not — otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“I wouldn’t?”
“Hardly.” The dragon bent closer. “When the old King was alive, he kept me exiled here in this wasteland. I was forbidden the rest of the valley. The Paladin was used to keep me here because the Paladin was as strong as I. I flew the skies at night, sometimes, but could not let myself be seen by the humans nor interfere in their lives…” The dragon’s voice had grown hard. “I promised myself that one day I would be free again. This valley was as much mine as anyone’s. And when the old King died and the Paladin disappeared, I was free, Holiday — and no King of Landover shall ever put me back again.”
Ben was aware of a none-too-subtle shift in the atmosphere between them, but he pretended not to notice. “I’m not here for that,” he said.
“But you are here to ask for my pledge to the throne, aren’t you?”
“I’d thought about it,” Ben admitted.
Strabo’s snout split wide with a low, hissing laugh. “Such courage. Holiday! Wasted, though. I have never given my pledge to Landover’s Kings — never, in the thousand years of my life. Why should I? I am not as those others who live here! I am not confined to Landover as they! I can travel anywhere I choose!”
Ben swallowed. “You can?”
The dragon shifted, tail curling back behind Ben. “Well…not anywhere, I suppose. But almost anywhere. I cannot travel deep into the fairy world nor into worlds where they do not believe in dragons. Do they believe in dragons in your world?”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“That explains why I have never been there. I travel only to lands where dragons are real — or, at least, where dragons once were real. I frequent half a dozen worlds close at hand. Most I have hunted. I had to hunt them when the old King forbid me the valley.” His look turned sly, eyes lidding. “But hunting beyond the valley is more work than I care to do. It is easier to hunt here. It is more satisfying!”
The atmosphere had now gone decidely chilly. The dragon could be talked to, but it looked doubtful that he could be reasoned with. Ben felt doors closing all about him. “Well, I don’t suppose that there’s much point in my suggesting that you do anything else then, is there?”
Strabo lifted slightly on his hindlegs, dust rising from his massive body. “I have enjoyed our conversation, Holiday, but it appears to be at an end. Unfortunately, that means the end of you.”
“Oh, wait a minute, let’s not be so hasty.” Ben couldn’t get the words out fast enough, his mind racing. “Our conversation doesn’t have to be over, does it? I think we should talk a bit more!”
“I can understand why you would might want to,” the dragon hissed softly. “But I grow bored.”
“Bored! Okay, let’s change the subject!”
“That wouldn’t help.”
“No? Well, how about if I just leave, then — just walk away, say good-bye, so long?” Ben was desperate now.
The dragon loomed above him, a huge, scaled shadow. “That just postpones the inevitable. Eventually you would come back again. You would have to, because you are Landover’s King. Face it, Holiday — I am the enemy. Either you have to destroy me or I have to destroy you. I much prefer the latter.”
Ben glanced about wildly. “For God’s sake, why does one of us have to destroy the other?”
“Why? Because that’s the way it is between dragons and Kings. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Ben’s frustration had reached the breaking point. “Well if that’s the way it’s always been, then why the long dissertation on the disservice being done to dragons by storytelling humans? Why did you waste time telling me all that if you planned to fry me right after?”