Dragons' Truth

Chapter 2

Permalink for this paragraph 0 The two boys crossed the huge, perfectly green lawn towards the tiny house that was marked 1009 slowly, as though at any moment the dragon might burst out the front door and gobble them both up.  That the house was barely larger than the dragon’s head did not factor into their fear.  Larry knew he had been asked to meet the dragon here and he kept glancing up in case it was planning on dropping out of the sky onto the enormous lawn right in front of them, but his friend didn’t know any of it.  His friend was afraid because Larry, the one leading them to this house, the one who had faced down a real, live dragon and escaped alive, looked more scared now than he had in the dragon’s lair.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Finally they stepped onto the small porch.  As Larry reached out to knock on the door, it opened just before his knuckles could make contact.  Larry’s arm fell limp at his side.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Hello.”  An old man, probably in his late forties or early fifties (which is quite old to a twelve-year-old) stood on the other side of the open door, and stepped through, onto the porch.  He wore a strange outfit, cut like an old-fashioned suit, made of what looked like a soft leather, and colored the deep blue you see when you look straight up into the clear center of the sky.  His hair was white, but it seemed to pick up a tinge of blue that matched the deeply entrancing blue of the suit.  The man’s eyes were black, through and through, so deeply black that looking directly at them was like being blind in two perfect eye-shaped spots in the center of your vision.  He stood what seemed to the boys to be eight feet tall.  He introduced himself, “My name is Ghadshyk,” and extended his hand toward Larry.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry was a little confused, though he really hadn’t known what to expect here today.  He met Ghadshyk’s hand and shook it, mumbling “L-L-L-L-Larry.  I’m Larry, and this is–”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Ghadshyk cut him off, “I already know your friend.  I doubt very much that you really do.”  Ghadshyk cast a piercing gaze at Larry’s friend.  He looked like he wanted to breath fire at him right there on the street.  “He is not welcome in my home.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “But… but,” Larry dropped his voice to a whisper, “the dragon said…”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Your friend is not welcome here.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “It’s okay, Larry.  If I’d known this was who you were taking me to, I wouldn’t have come.  I apologize, Ghadshyk.  I’ll be going home.”  He paused, looked over his shoulder at his house just across the street and said, “But now I know you’re here and you know I’m there.”  His eyes met Ghadshyk’s and Larry would have sworn they were blacker than the old man’s eyes in that moment.  “So let’s not forget our agreement.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Their gaze did not break for a long moment.  Larry’s hand was still in Ghadshyk’s grip, which felt more and more like a glove than a warm human hand.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Impossible.”  Ghadshyk’s voice in four syllables showed a world of depth and hate and history.  It rumbled not just across the air from his lips to their ears, but down his arm and into Larry’s, creating a deep, empty stirring the like of which Larry never wished to feel again.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry’s friend turned and began running away, light and carefree as though nothing strange had happened.  He glanced back at Larry saying, “See you later, Larry!”  His eyes looked normal again.  Ghadshyk did not release Larry’s hand until the departing boy had disappeared behind his closed front door.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Sorry about that.”  Ghadshyk’s voice had returned to its friendly, welcoming tone, “Don’t ask, though.  Don’t ask me and don’t ask him.  It doesn’t concern you, boy.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Oh… Okay.”  Larry hadn’t understood what had happened at all, but he was more immediately wondering about what this strange man’s connection was to the dragon.  “What about the…”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Be patient.  You’ll see.  Just follow me.”  The old man turned and entered the house, and Larry followed.  The door closed behind them on its own, though it did not appear to have one of those mechanical door closers on it.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 The inside of the house appeared to be just one big room with a closet in the corner.  It was furnished sparsely.  There was only a single, simple chair next to a frail-looking card table, and dust bunnies huddled in every corner.  The only light was the sunlight filtering in through the well-worn curtains that hung over all the windows.  Larry didn’t think to notice that there was no apparent way the room would be lit at night.  He didn’t wonder long about the unimpressive room at all, because Ghadshyk had made a beeline straight for the closet door.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 It took Larry as long to take in the room visually as it took Ghadshyk to cross it physically, so by the time Larry began to wonder about the room, Ghadshyk already had the closet door open.  Larry could see that it was not, in fact, a closet at just about the same moment he had begun to wonder what would be in the closet.  And by the time Larry stepped through the door and began down the stairs he had stopped wondering altogether and now was just trying to take it all in.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Ghadshyk was descending the stone steps rapidly ahead of Larry, so Larry only caught the most obvious features as they dropped into the cool of the underground.  The stairs seemed to spiral around a large center at the top, but the sharpness of their constant turning increased as they went down.  The steps, the walls, the ceiling, it all seemed to be carved out of solid stone.  Whoever had done the carving had not only had a lot of time, but immense skill.  The corners of each step were sharp, the ceiling described a perfectly smooth parallel surface to the angle of the steps, and there was a complicated and ornate relief carved all along both sides of the corridor down.  There was no apparent light source in the spiral staircase, no torches, no glowing from the walls, no shadows creeping along around and behind them, but Larry was able to see nonetheless.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry was intrigued by the carvings on the walls – it seemed to be playing out the history of a great army of dragons – but he was more presently distracted by Ghadshyk, walking ahead of him.  In the dim, non-source light he nearly didn’t notice it at first, but Ghadshyk’s skin was gradually shifting hues to match the blue of his suit.  The white hair on his head seemed thinner than it had been at the door, nearly transparent, and the edges of Ghadshyk’s collar, sleeves and all his clothes’ seams seemed slightly out of focus.  Larry tried to move faster down the stairs to see what was happening but he simply could not keep up.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 The light seemed to be dimming or flickering as they continued down and down.  Larry had no idea how deep they were now, and he didn’t care – Ghadshyk’s legs appeared, in the insufficient light, to have separated into three.  Ghadshyk’s arms seemed almost to be two to a side.  Larry hoped that the rapid movements and uncertain lighting were just playing tricks on his eyes.  What he was seeing just didn’t make sense.  Ghadshyk’s head was enormous and hairless and now seemed scaly, too.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 The stairs went down and down and down and the circle drew a tighter and tighter spiral as they dropped.  The third leg was definitely not walking.  It seemed rather to be swaying back and forth and lengthening as the other two legs began to shift and fold and Ghadshyk’s whole posture changed, though his height did not seem to.  At the same time, Larry saw that the two appendages he had taken to be extra arms were coming straight out of Ghadshyk’s shoulder blades, rather than his sides.  They had no hands at their ends, and looked more and more like loosely folded-up umbrellas.  On top of all that, Ghadshyk no longer showed any sign that he had been wearing – or even could have been wearing – the suit.  His skin, what had been there before as well as that on his strange new limbs, was that same deep sky blue that the now-vanished suit had been.  Larry followed on, not understanding what he was seeing, but rapt.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Then suddenly, just as the spiraling of the staircase seemed about to become so tight that it would run into itself, they came upon another door.  It looked like the same door they’d come in, and as Ghadshyk reached out to grasp the ornate handle and open it, Larry realized that those hands were not hands.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Those fingers were not fingers.  The door opened, and light from beyond it flooded the stairwell.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Those fingers were claws.  Ghadshyk stepped into a room that was familiar to Larry and totally foreign at the same time.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry could not move himself over the threshold into the room, but stood, slack-jawed, as Ghadshyk, the dragon, turned to face him.  He turned and the long tail that was definitely not a third leg swung around behind him.  He stood up tall and the giant wings that were not arms and definitely not umbrellas unfolded behind him with a very familiar sound.  Ghadshyk’s head no longer held much resemblance to the man who had answered the door, full of perilously sharp teeth and with the look of something about to spit fire.  The only resemblance was in the still-black eyes that regarded Larry with the same feeling of welcome that had met him outside.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Are you coming in, Larry?”  There was the voice from yesterday, deep and reverberating through Larry’s body, though it seemed to be on a more reasonable scale.  In fact, Larry realized then, that was what had seemed so wrong with the room and the dragon; it all seemed foreign because it was no longer insanely larger than him.  In very point of fact, the room seemed quite normally sized, like the living room of most any home Larry had been in during his life.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Except there was the dragon, Ghadshyk, standing before him, and there was the china cabinet behind him, with the plate resting atop it…  A plate that had been big enough for Larry to hide behind the previous day, but which now seemed too small to really even eat from.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry walked into the room.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “So… What happens next?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I guess that’s up to you.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Half an hour later, Ghadshyk had taught Larry enough of the rules and basic strategy of the board game Go that they were able to begin a proper game.  Larry had been paying so much attention to learning the game and was so at ease with Ghadshyk’s friendly demeanor that he had nearly forgotten he was sitting across from a dragon.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “To tell you what I know you want to understand, I have to go way back, and you’ll have to be willing to listen to me rambling on and on, perhaps for many days, even weeks, before we get to the parts that relate to what you want to know.”  Ghadshyk placed a white piece on the Go board and looked up at Larry, “You can come over after school every day if you like, but I must insist that you do your homework each day before I begin my stories.  On weekends, you must go out and play.  I won’t be the one to entirely steal your youth from you.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Okay.”  Larry placed a black piece on the board.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Your parents will want to know what you’re doing every day after school, as will your friends.”  Ghadshyk placed another white piece, “Do you know what to tell them?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Larry quickly placed a black piece on the board that blocked in three white pieces completely.  He took these white pieces from the board and set them aside, replying, “I can’t tell them I’m hanging out with a dragon.  I guess I’ll have to lie and say–”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Wrong.”  Ghadshyk placed a white piece on the board.  “I will not have you lying to your parents.  You will simply not mention that I happen to be a dragon.”  Larry was watching Ghadshyk, wondering what he meant for Larry to tell his parents exactly, and put down a black piece.  “You will tell them that I am a tutor, and this will not be a lie because I will be helping you with your homework every day.  If they want to know how you found a tutor who works for free, tell them I am retired, which is true enough, and say that your ‘friend’ has studied with me before – he cannot truthfully deny it.”  Ghadshyk placed another white piece, Larry another black, and Ghadshyk continued, “And if they wish to meet me, I can come to them with the appearance of the man you met at the top of the stairs today.  As for your friends, it will have to be the same story; you are being tutored.  Since you will be playing with them on the weekends and will very certainly see an improvement in your marks at school, I expect that none of them will give it a second thought.  They’ll assume your parents are forcing you to see me.”  Ghadshyk placed one more white piece on the board and in a sweeping but very accurate movement pulled the fourteen black pieces he had blocked with it from the board, setting them aside as he waited for a response from Larry.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “You’re going to make me study and do well in school and keep the biggest secret I’ve ever even heard of in my life from everyone I know, and in return you’re going to let me hang out every weekday with a real live dragon and you’re going to tell me stories about your life as a dragon the whole time, right?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I’ll also help you improve your Go game, if you like, but that sounds like a concise version of same.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Sounds cool to me.”  Larry placed another black piece on the board, connecting two very long ‘dragons’ that now stretched from one end of the board to the other together.  “But you have to do one more thing for me.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “You’re making demands of me now?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “It’s not such a big thing, really.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Ghadshyk considered his response and carefully placed a white piece on the otherwise empty left side of the board, the only piece on that side of Larry’s dragon.  “What is it?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “If I get straight A’s at the end of next term, you’ll tell me what was going on between you and my friend back there today.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I told you not to ask about that.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I’m not asking, I’m negotiating.  Really it depends as much on you as it does on me.  I haven’t got an A since fifth grade.  You’d have to be one heck of a tutor.”  Larry placed another black piece on the board, beginning to enclose the entire left side of the board and properly create a large ‘eye’.  “Of course, if you aren’t that good of a tutor, some questions might be raised about why you like to spend several hours every day alone with a twelve-year-old boy.  It just isn’t done, these days.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Larry,” Ghadshyk placed another white piece on the left side of the board, “I think you’re forgetting my stake in this.  I have quite nothing to lose.  If you claim I am a dragon, who will believe you?  No one in America believes in dragons, or in most of the rest of the world, for that matter.  If you claim I have molested you, the authorities will find not only that the house at 1009 S. Wilson has remained unoccupied for nearly 90 years, but that the closet door does not lead to the staircase as you’d claimed, but to what is, in fact, a closet.  There is no human named ‘Ghadshyk’ and there never has been.  All that would come of it is that you would be made a fool of and become the boy who cried wolf.  Plus you would never get a chance to see me again.  It’s your loss, Larry, not mine.  If we get started and your grades do not show improvement, it’s you who will face having to come up with an explanation.  Even the rat hole you originally crawled in through has been sealed up now and a spell cast so that no one, not even you, can even stumble across that path accidentally, let alone with intent.  If you want to find out more about me, about this place and about dragons, you’ll play along, study, get good grades, and forget about trying to get something out of me I’m not willing to give.  It’s your move, Larry.”  Ghadshyk indicated the board with his clawed hand, but Larry felt he may have meant otherwise.  Larry continued his black dragon’s progress around the board and remained silent.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Remember that today we are playing first, but that in the future we’ll do your schoolwork first.  Tonight you’re going to go home and do your homework alone.”  Ghadshyk placed a white tile on the right side of the board this time, “but first, a little story.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Once upon a time, in a land far away–”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Where was it, really?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “This story takes place … Well, I won’t tell you exactly, but in a high, mountainous region of what you know today as China.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “You’re Chinese?  You don’t sound Chinese to me.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “If you mean to say that I don’t sound like a Chinaman, that is simply because I am not one.  I am not a man at all, really.  I am a dragon, and all dragons – true dragons – originate in the region I am referring to which is now known as China.”  Ghadshyk took a sip of his tea and continued, “As far as sounding like a Chinaman goes, I can do that too, if you like.”  And suddenly Ghadshyk was speaking in another language.  Larry, of course, did not know Mandarin or Cantonese and most definitely did not know the ancient form of Cantonese that Ghadshyk was now beginning to tell his story in, so he simply threw up his hands.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Okay, okay, you sound Chinese!  But I don’t really know Chinese, so could you go back to English?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 Ghadshyk stopped, grinned, and said, “Of course.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Hey, how did you learn English so good if you’re from China?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “First, the proper use would be ‘how did you learn English so well’, Larry.  Second, if you will just sit back and let me tell my story, that will all become clear.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Go on.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “As I was saying, this story takes place long ago, in a land quite far away from here.  I was a young dragon, not quite two hundred years old yet, when–”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “You’re over two hundred years old?  Wow!”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I’m over six hundred years old, Larry.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “How long do dragons live?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Depends on the dragon.  Usually at least 1200 years, so long as they are not hunted down by evil men or worse.  The oldest dragon I still know to be alive was around when Siddhartha –  Buddha – was born.  That’s around three thousand years ago, Larry, and this dragon was old enough to leave our enclave and seek out Siddhartha.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Wow.  How old does a dragon have to be to leave the …?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “The enclave.  At least two hundred years old, which I would have got to, had you not interrupted me.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “I’m sorry.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “It’s no problem, it just makes the stories take longer and takes a lot of the flow out of the actual telling.”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “There’s just so much I want to know.  Shouldn’t I ask?”

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “Yes, I’m not telling you not to ask, I’m just saying that if you would learn to practice a little patience, I’m sure I’ll answer all your questions in the course of the stories.  I’ve spent a lot of time around humans, more than most dragons ever do, and I know what the differences between human experience and dragon experiences tend to be.  For instance, most humans have no idea what it feels like to fly under their own power, free, out in the air.  I have been in airplanes, but … like so much else that humankind has come up with, it is utility first and experience last, with so many needless factors like monetary cost and labor intensity in production taken into account first that the experience ends up as an afterthought or just the combined result of the things that came first in the designers’ minds.”  Ghadshyk cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry.  What am I doing, rambling on like this about human engineering practices?  You wanted to hear about dragons.

Permalink for this paragraph 0 “All right, from the beginning,” Ghadshyk continued, “Long ago, in a land far away from here, when I was a young dragon, not even two hundred years old, I saw what seemed at the time to be the strangest thing that ever could be.  I saw a pink dragon.”