James & the Dragon

the same reason. What could a peasant boy do with a ruby like this? James did not know. He only knew he had to have it. He shoved it deep into his pocket and returned to the main cave.

  - JAMES AND THE DRAGON BECOME FRIENDS -

  James burped in satisfaction as the warm meat turned over in his now-full stomach.

  Farloft had finished his portion of the elk ages ago. He lay on his stomach drawing in the sand by the pool with one giant claw.

  “Would you like the rest of this?” James offered. The elk’s leg was far too much for him to eat even if he had been starving.

  “If you are sure you do not want it?” Farloft replied.

  “I’m sure. I couldn’t eat another bite,” James assured the dragon.

  Farloft took the leg and began to gnaw on it absently as he talked. “Now tell me, James,” he began between bites. “How did you come to be at the bog alone? Have you no family?”

  “No, sir,” James replied. He moved to the pool and began to clean the knife with the fine handle. “My father and sister died in the plague this past year.”

  Farloft gulped down the last of the elk and resumed his place on the sand. He lay with his head on his front feet looking ever so much like an overgrown green dog. “Have you no mother?”

  “She died when I was born.” James set to polishing the knife with the edge of his now dry cape.

  “No one at all left to care for you?” Farloft asked.

  “No one, but I’m old enough to take care of myself,” James asserted.

  Farloft did not remind the boy of his near death in the bog as proof he was not as capable of caring for himself as he attested.

  The dragon noted the care James took to clean the knife. “You know, you chose well,” Farloft indicated approval of the knife with a shift of his eye ridge. “King Ludlow gave me that dagger upon our victory over the Baldars.”

  “You fought with King Ludlow?” James was clearly astonished. He knew the tale of the battle of Elgon and the ballad sung every year at the festival of Elgon. He had never heard of a dragon in it.

  “Aye,” Farloft stretched. When he came to rest again he rolled onto his back staring up at the crystal ceiling. “I know, I know,” he said in dismay. “The ballad sung today of the battle of Elgon is missing the stanza about our part in the victory.”

  “Our part?” James asked even more astounded then before. “There was more than one dragon there?”

  “Oh yes,” Farloft replied with a sigh of memory. “In those days there were so many dragons that we lived in clans. Each clan had its own leader. All the leaders were there that day. All eight of us.” Farloft started to hum and then broke into song.

  “When the battle raged un-heeded.

  When the Baldars looked to win.

  Then the dragons, fire blazing,

  Put the battle to an end.”

  “King Ludlow was victorious, but the dragons paid a heavy toll. We lost five leaders, forced from the air by spear or arrow wounds. A boulder from a catapult hit Flyoff and before he could regain the sky, Baldar troops swarmed over him like ants on a dead carcass. There were only three of us left after the battle. The leaders are the fathers of the clan. Without them, their clan dies. But, we won,” Farloft said, as he rolled back over on his stomach. “King Ludlow knew what a great price the dragons paid for his victory. The King gave us all he had to give. To me, that dagger you hold. The same dagger he fought with that day. To Fireall he gave his shield and to Fairgain he gave his sword. He was a good and honest man. Sometimes I wish humans lived as long as dragons. Life would be so much simpler.”

  “I’m sorry about your friends’ deaths.” James moved closer to Farloft and laid the knife at the dragon’s feet.

  “Thank you, James. But that was long ago. You may keep the dagger while you are here.”

  James picked it back up and slipped it into his belt. It was heavy and made him feel safe. No one in the village owned a weapon as grand as this dagger. But, it also made him feel ashamed. Farloft trusted him with something that held great value, in both money and memories. It made James think about the ruby he stole from the dragon’s treasure room. James pushed the thought from his mind. The dragon probably stole the ruby in the first place. Everyone knew dragons kept stolen treasures. Then again, maybe it too had been a gift from some admirer. James was thinking there was a lot he probably did not know about dragons.

  “The other things in the cavern where I got the knife, were they all gifts?” James asked in order to relieve his conscience. Stealing something already stolen was not the same as stealing someone’s property first hand.

  “All gifts,” Farloft confirmed to James’ dismay. “Dragons and man used to work and fight together for the good of the kingdom. Humans are great gift givers and they found out quickly that dragons love shiny, sparkling things. Anything that sparkles or glitters can be seen a million different ways by a dragon. Like here,” Farloft pointed out. “What makes the cave light?”

  “The light from the cones on the crystals above,” James answered, proud of himself for already having figured out this riddle.

  “Aye, but more.” Farloft explained. “Look at the pool’s surface.”

  Farloft was right. The pool reflected the colored crystals on the ceiling. James had failed to notice that while in the pool.

  “And the walls,” Farloft pointed out.

  The slate walls of the cave danced with small brightly colored rainbows of color. To James’ surprise he had missed these too.

  “They are created by the refraction of the light from the cones off the crystals,” Farloft explained further. “I love this place. It is even better than the gift chamber.”

  James shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the chamber again. The ruby felt heavy in his pocket. The dragon saved his life, fed him, given him the jewel encrusted dagger to use, and he had stolen from him. If only he could put it back. But, what excuse could he make for returning to the treasure chamber?

  Farloft noticed James uneasiness and in misinterpreting it, he rose to his feet. “Best get you home. It will be dark soon.”

  James followed Farloft down the tunnel the dragon came through earlier, to another chamber which opened directly to the outdoors. Snow fell heavily. It swirled around the mouth of the cave, already forming drifts close to a foot deep.

  Farloft sat down heavily. “Well, I suppose you are stuck with my company for a bit longer. You certainly cannot walk home in this and if I flew you, you would freeze before we got there.”

  “Wouldn’t you freeze too?” James asked with curiosity.

  “Dragons do not experience hot or cold, James. We have our own internal regulators that keep us at just the right temperature.”

  It was the first of many things James would learn about, and from the dragon, that winter while he shared Farloft’s hospitality during the worst snows the Kingdom had seen in many years.

  - JAMES WORKS FOR HIS SUPPER -

  “Farloft, STOP!” James yelled in alarm.

  Farloft was standing on his hind feet violently scraping his shoulder on the crystal ceiling. The rocks were crumbling from the roof onto the floor below. The only safe place from the fallout from above was the archway to the inner cave where James stood.

  “What is the matter with you,” James shouted above the sound of the pelting rocks.

  “Itch,” Farloft said and kept rubbing. “Can’t quite reach...”

  “Stop,” James called. “Let me do it before you bring down the whole ceiling on us.”

  Farloft came back down on his all fours. “You would do that?”

  “Of course,” James said as he moved closer to Farloft. “Give me a way up.”

  Farloft lowered his head and put out a front paw as a step. James vaulted from the back of the dragon’s foot to Farloft’s head and then slid down his neck to where his wings met at his shoulder blades. He scratched as hard as he could. Farloft huffed out a pillar of smoke as he arched his back into James’ scratch.

/>   “A couple of your scales are loose. Does it hurt?”

  “No, that’s the problem,” Farloft explained. “Can you pull them off?”

  James grabbed hold of one of the large scales. “This won’t hurt?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  James yanked off the scale and dropped it. It fell with a slight drift to the floor. “You all right?”

  “Much better,” Farloft sighed.

  “Hold on there’s one more lose.” James peeled off the second scale and dropped it.

  “Thank you, lad. That is so much better. It’s just a spot I can’t reach.” Farloft relaxed under James’ continued scratching.

  James finally stopped. Scratching Farloft was like rubbing your finger tips on a rasp. “How’s that?”

  “Great, thank you.” Farloft almost purred.

  James slid down Farloft’s wing to the floor of the cave and walked over to the edge of the pool. “Is this good enough?” James asked, as he held up the silver punch bowl. Farloft had been bringing him silver pieces from his treasure room to polish before stopping to scratch.

  “Excellent!” Farloft almost roared. He lifted it up to the light of the sparkling ceiling. “I can see myself in it.”

  James was fast finding that there was nothing a dragon liked better than something that sparkled. Farloft literally glowed when he looked at a favorite piece.

  “It is renewed to its old shine.” Farloft reached behind himself and pulled out another large punchbowl and handed it to James. It was as black with tarnish as the one he held was bright.

  “Not another one,” James moaned. “Why did they