Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

Chapter 6

She had been content for many years to hang around in Athens, enjoying parties and good times, having many lovers, and redecorating her house. Witches grow lazy with the passing of time, and tend to rest upon their lau­rels. The sins that witches try to make people commit turn up later to haunt them. They lose their knowledge bit by bit, for­getting what they studied in the great witch schools. Ylith had been vegetating for a long while, before she was called up by Azzie.

Her reaction now was surprise at herself for volunteering to find eyes for the young couple. Was this really what she wanted to do? Did she love Azzie so much? Or was it more a matter of trying to find a duty to perform, to serve something greater than herself? Either way, she felt the need for advice when it came to the second pair of eyes.

And when it came to wise advice, the sagest counsel she knew was that of Skander... .

Dragons live a long time, and smart dragons not only live a very long time, but also change their names from time to time so that people don't get wise to just how long they're living and get jealous. There's nothing a hero likes to kill more than a really old dragon. The years on a dragon are like the rack on a buck.

Skander and other dragons became aware of how many heroes were hunting for them, and they grew more and more cautious. Gone were the old days, when they hung around and guarded treasure and took on anyone who came along. The dragons were doing very well at that game, too, although all you hear about are hero victories. There were plenty of dragon victories, but there were only a few dragons and an endless supply of heroes. The heroes kept coming, until the dragons got wise to the whole game.

There was a big conference held, at which many views were heard. The Chinese dragons were the most numerous at that time, but they were so jealous of their wisdom and so determined that no other dragon would get it, that all they said, when their advice was asked, were things such as, "It furthers one to see the great man." "You will cross the water." "The superior man is like sand." And the Chinese philosophers, who had a taste for obscurity, collected these into books, which they sold to Westerners in search of wisdom.

The final decision at the conference was to bow to neces­sity, give up some of the more aggressive tactics, which had given dragons bad repute, and maintain a low profile. Dragons voted universally to give up their time-old pursuits of Hoarding and Guarding in favor of the new disciplines of Ducking and Dodging. Don't just stand around guarding treasure, they an­nounced to each other. Fade into the landscape, live at the bottoms of rivers - for many dragons were able to live under­water- gilled dragons, they were called, that fed on sharks and killer whales and mahimahi. The land dragons had to adopt a different strategy. Land-based dragons learned to conceal them­selves as small mountains, hills, even as clumps of trees. They gave up their old habits of ferocity, contenting themselves with an occasional hunter who strayed into their territory. Once in a while a dragon went back to the old practices, and eventually got hunted down and killed. That dragon's name would go down in the Dragon Hall of Heroes, and the rest would be advised not to act like him.

Skander was old even by dragon standards. He was there­fore super wily and stayed out of trouble. He lived in central Asia, somewhere near Samarkand, but he had been around since before the city was founded. You could have searched for ages and not found Skander if he didn't want to be found. But if you did find him he was often a helpful dragon, and he had a vast store of lore. He was also quirky, however, and given to mood swings.

Ylith knew this, but she had to make the attempt. She picked up a bundle of powerbrooms, the sort you can fly on. These were the witches' greatest accomplishment. They ran on spells, which the Witches' Sisterhood put together at their head­quarters in Byzantium. The power of spells ran in cycles, some years good, others not so good. Spells were subject to natural forces, but these were not clearly understood, and there were occasional recalls.

The logical starting place, it seemed to her, was the place she had met Skander last time: Dragon Rock. Dragons are clever enough to know that men will never search for a dragon at a place called Dragon Rock.

Many heroes had ridden through the area, most of them bearing only the light curved sword of the region, which would do no good against a dragon anyway. Not that Skander cared to try issues even with these lightweights. Skander's hide with its overlapping scales was able to withstand the blow of an avalanche, and he thought nothing of swords unless they were backed up with really powerful spells. But humans were sneaky; they'd seem to be aiming at a shoulder, and then, pow, you'd get an arrow in the eye. Somehow dragons, despite their ex­treme intelligence and centuries of experience, were prone to getting arrows in the eye. They never fully caught on to the trick that men used, of pretending to shoot in one direction and then actually shooting in another. It wasn't according to dragon practice, and went against their idea of a warrior's ethics.

For whatever reason, Ylith had met Skander at Dragon Rock, where she had been visiting relatives who had recently moved to the area from Scythia. Skander at that time had been taking advantage of a rare shape-changing spell that had come his way. Dragons are always in search of shape-changing spells because, being intelligent, they aspire to appear in human so­ciety. Although humans don't know it, dragons in altered shapes have been present in many of the courts of the world, where they love to argue with philosophers. More often, though, drag­ons simply get tired of all the years alone, all the more alone since dragons of either sex are suspicious of dragons of the opposite sex. It is for this reason, not for lack of opportunity or lustiness, that dragons rarely mate, and it is even more rare that they have young. Among the dragons who do have young, there's no agreed-upon rule as to which parent is to bring up the children. There's not even consensus on who bears them. The dragons did away with most of that instinctual stuff ages ago. Creatures of reason now, they fought over these matters among themselves. It is said that in the settling of these argu­ments, much of the race of dragons was wiped out.

And heroes had a field day against dragons in their con­fusion. It amazed dragons to think that knights-beefy guys in metal suits-could kill them, since the humans were so ob­viously unintelligent and had only their court rituals going for them. But the humans were winning because they were single-minded about killing, while the dragons were single-minded about nothing at all.

Ylith flew to the Samarkand region and made inquiry in the town of Yar Digi, the nearest village to Dragon Rock. It was a low, miserable place, and there was nothing on its one street but souvenir shops. These were filled with dragon lore, but there were no customers. When Ylith asked about this, a bookstore owner named Achmed told her, "It is because the long-awaited boom in dragon lore has not yet come to pass. Other places are getting all the attention. In Britain, for ex­ample, where no dragons have stirred for centuries, they run guided tours of where they used to be, and outsell us a hundred to one. Where is the dragon? Somewhere up the trail over in his cave at Dragon Rock. But no one ever seems able to find it unless the dragon wants visitors. And you never know about that. He's quirky."

Ylith went in the direction indicated and, after paying her entrance fee, was allowed onto the path. Moving along it, she rounded a number of turns, passed a small refreshment stand, passed Dragon Rock itself. Nothing resembling a cave was apparent at either hand.

It was not until she heard a deep, resonant chuckle that she halted.

"Skander?" she called.

The sound came again.

"It's me, Ylith."

Suddenly she became aware of a shadowy place between two boulders which might be more than shadow. Moving to it, she saw that it continued back into a greater darkness. She entered there.

At what point she passed within the greater darkness of the hillside she could not be certain. Yet, after a time, the echoing of her footfalls convinced her that she was entirely indoors.

"Skander?" she repeated.

There was still no reply, but she became aware of a faint illumination ahead and to the right. Following it around a bend, she entered an area where the stone itself seemed to glow- overhead and at either hand. With this visibility, she increased her pace. The passage branched several times, and in each instance she followed the path of greater brightness.

At length, she came to a chamber where the dark, scaled form she sought reclined, staring at her. Save for the eyes, she might have missed him in the stillness. She halted upon the threshold, uneasy.

"Skander. It's me. Ylith," she said.

He cocked his head and lowered his eyelids slightly.

"Yes. It is, isn't it?" he observed. "How long has it been?"

"Long. What are you doing?"

"I was dreaming of the Renaissance."

"What is a Renaissance?"

"I'm sorry, I'm getting my centuries mixed up," he replied. "The Renaissance comes later. That's the trouble with being prescient. You can never tell then from now."

"Skander," Ylith said, "I need help."

"Just as I thought," the dragon said. "What else would bring you out to this remote place? What is it you want, my dear? The old flames are still plenty hot. Want me to burn someone up for you?"

"I need eyes," Ylith said, and explained about Azzie and Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet.

"Eyes," Skander murmured, and his hide, normally a red­dish brown, turned pasty white. There was a prophecy she had suddenly brought to mind.

"Why do you stay in this place?" Ylith asked.

"It's the quest for fame, you see," Skander said. "The people here are going to publicize me. I promised to put this place on the map. It hasn't happened yet but it's bound to come."

"Where can I get some really good eyes?" Ylith asked.

"Eyes," Skander mused. "Why, there are eyes everywhere. Why do you bother asking me?"

"You know where the best ones are. All dragons do."

"Yes, of course," Skander said. "But I'd really rather not discuss eyes, if you don't mind."

"You don't want to discuss eyes?"

"Just superstitious, I guess. Sorry."

"Care to tell me about it?"

"All right," he said. "Long ago, in China, I saw that when­ever the court artist painted dragons he always put in the eyes last. When I asked him of this, he told me that this act gave the painting a special sort of life, and it wouldn't do to summon this life until everything else was done. A wise man had told him that the eyes of my kind are the focus of the spirit. They hold the life, they are the last things to go. I looked up that wise man then-an old Taoist monk-and he assured me that this was true. He also prophesied that a witch asking after eyes in my presence represented a total reversal of Yin and Yang."

"What does that mean?"

"Rosebud..." he answered, and closed his eyes.

She waited, but he did not continue. After a time, she cleared her throat.

"Uh, Skander? What then?"

There was no reply.

"You asleep, Skander?"

Silence.

Finally, she moved forward and held her hand before his nostrils. She could feel no breath. Moving even nearer, she placed her hand between the scales of his breast. There was no heartbeat.

"Oh dear!" she said. "What now?"

But she already knew.

When she had done, she stroked the dead dragon's nose, a thing it had loved feeling in life. Poor old dragon! she thought. So old and wise, yet reduced to this, a mound of cooling flesh in a mountain cave.

She knew that it would be evening soon, and that was not a good time to be about in a foreign country. Local demons were apt to be abroad, and they could cause some rare mischief if they were of a mind to. There was no love lost between European and Asiatic demons in those days, and the wars be­tween the two still awaits their chronicler.

The eyes she wrapped in a small silk handkerchief, then placed in a casket of rosewood which she kept on hand for the transport of delicate and precious objects. Then she turned and departed the cave.

Ylith stood tall as the light of the falling sun bounced off the ice peaks of the highest mountains. She shook out her glorious black flag of hair, mounted her powerbroom, and soared away into the west, the land of the dragon dwindling beneath her.