Diary of a Dragon

  Diary

  of a

  Dragon

  Tad Williams

  Subterranean Press 2013

  Diary of a Dragon Copyright © 2013

  by Beale-Williams Enterprise.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover and interior illustrations Copyright © 2013

  by William Eakin.

  All rights reserved.

  Print version interior design Copyright © 2013

  by Desert Isle Design.

  All rights reserved.

  Electronic Edition

  ISBN

  978-1-59606-559-8

  Subterranean Press

  PO Box 190106

  Burton, MI 48519

  www.subterraneanpress.com

  Dear Diary

  Went out shopping today. Picked up half a dozen sheep, two pigs, and a princess. The sheep are rather depressingly thin, the pigs and princess only slightly less so. The wind off the mountains was very cold and my joints ache. I am growing too old for this flying-around nonsense.

  Later:

  I have discovered a nasty-looking arrow lodged in the scales of my armpit. Someone from that castle, no doubt. As if they did not have three or four more princesses waiting around the place, and dozens more to be had from other castles. I just know it will fester. Even if I am lucky and it does not turn gangrenous, it will certainly itch. Mean-spirited little humans. I have never, ever liked them.

  Dear Diary

  The sheep were stringy, as I feared. If someone is going to leave mutton standing around in a field masquerading as early spring lamb, they should hang a large sign on it saying “mutton,” so a poor old soul like myself does not strain his aching pinions carrying it back.

  The pigs look more hopeful. I will have one of them tomorrow, and the princess for dessert. Before I eat her, I will make her look at this arrow-spite under my arm so she feels properly guilty.

  Dear Diary

  The princess is a horrible creature. She has crawled into the back of my cave where I cannot reach her and will not come out and be eaten. I could roast her with my fiery breath, I suppose, but then she would just stay there and the old den would never feel quite clean again. (Reminder to self: sweep sheep bones to midden. One preserved here to remind me not to visit that pasture again.)

  I have tried to reason with her, but it is useless. Not for the first time, I wonder that such a profoundly stupid species should have such a wonderful way with sheep. (Although whichever tribe this princess belongs to appears to have lagged behind the rest in their husbandry skills, if the quality of what I picked up yesterday is any indication.)

  Later:

  Horrible princess sang songs all night. My old bones ache and my eyes feel like I have flown through a sandstorm. I threatened to roast her, but she just sang louder. To add to my irritation, the remaining pig has fouled the floor. I have scrubbed and scrubbed with a wet birch tree, but I can still smell it. My stomach has gone all goozly, and I do not think I would enjoy the princess just now even if she did the right thing and came out.

  Also, I will now have to find some place to wash this pig before I can bear to eat it, but if I leave the den, the horrible princess creature will run away and I will have a tedious time swooping around in the cold wind until I find her. I am very cross.

  Dear Diary

  The princess saw me writing in my Diary yesterday afternoon and said, “Can dragons read and write?” To which I responded (a little testily) “Better than princesses can sing.” It is depressing to descend to that level, but I did not sleep well last night, either. I do not know who has taught this horrid girl to make music, but whoever it is should be immediately killed. Twice, if possible.

  Dear Diary

  It is miserable outside. Here is a frozen bear. It is the very stupid one I wrote about back in the autumn—the one who had become confused about when to hibernate.

  Dear Diary

  The wretched, wretched creature is blackmailing me! She has told me that she is bored and wants to draw, and that if I do not give her my Diary and ink, she will sing every night, all night. And I am to feed her, too. I am speechless with rage, and furious with myself for leaving that alcove in the back of the den which is too narrow for me to get into with my bad back and whatnot. Again I am tempted to flame her to a cinder, but the thought of then continuing indefinitely with a singed princess just out of reach…

  Dreadful. Yes, I am truly furious. If I can solve the running-away problem, I think I will go out and find something to kill, which would make me feel better.

  Later:

  I blocked the cave entrance with a boulder (and of course pulled a muscle in my foreleg, which is now throbbing miserably) and went outside. I chased a deer, but it ran into a thicket and I scratched myself. While I was putting snow on the wounds (and waiting for the thicket to stop burning) I decided that it would be easier to give her what she wants. If we develop some trust, some mutual understanding, perhaps at some point she will come out, and then I can eat her.

  Dear Diary

  The princess-thing is making pictures. To my horror, I have discovered she is one of those people who sings while she draws.

  I could not give her you, of course, dear Diary. But I have given her a few old sheepskins and a bit of ink and a quill. When I tossed them into her hidey-hole, she said “thank you.” Thank you! As though I were some kindly old human who had given her sugar-candy, instead of a lordly dragon being forced to comply with the threats and menaces of a delinquent child. The snooty baggage. Just a moment, she’s saying something.

  Hah. She wants to know if I can think of a way to stretch the skins on something to make them flatter. “When you have a moment or two,” she said.

  I will eat her very, very slowly.

  Dear Diary

  Here is a picture she has painted of me. While she makes me appear far older than I actually am (instead of flattering her host, she has done rather the reverse), I suppose it is a tolerable likeness. If she were not a human and a horrible singing princess-thing, I would perhaps even compliment her on it. As it is, I shall place the picture here between your pages, dear Diary, and perhaps I will let her live a bit longer, just to see if she can produce a portrait that better displays the noble lines of my face.

  (I swear that I do not squint in that ridiculous fashion!)

  Dear Diary

  It is hard to believe, but apparently the princess-thing has a suitor. A large (by the standards of the species) and very stupid (by any standard) human appeared at the cave door today, called me the “Foul Kidnapper of the Demure and Beauteous Lillian”—which is, I suppose, the princess-thing’s name—and challenged me to a fight.

  What was odd was that the princess appeared as irritated by the whole thing as I was. She kept yelling at us both to stop—the armored person seems to be named “Sir Greg”—and when we had been fighting a while, a mere hour or so, and were taking a little break, she called out that I was holding her captive with a magic spell, and that if this Greg person slew me, she too would perish.

  Although I admit I was wheezing a bit, I am certain that when I had caught my breath again I would have finished him off, so I was not the least happy or relieved when he took her at her word and retreated back toward the castle. I asked her what she thought she was doing, since a lordly dragon would never trifle with cowardly, humanish things like spells.

  “Trying to keep two idiots from killing each other,” was her reply. Smug, infuriating creature.

  Dear Diary

  She is painting and drawing almost all the time. Some of the pictures are nice, in their own way, and from time to time I shall use a bit of your sacred pages, O dearest Diary, to display them.

  I have discovered to my hor
ror that she has already drawn pictures of herself and other things in your margins, my poor abused Diary—I must have left you too near her bolt-hole when that ill-mannered, loose-stomached swine of a pig was causing trouble—so these pages have already been witness to her essentially criminal features.

  No, I am unfair. It is only her musical inclinations that could truly be termed criminal. The rest of her behavior is merely unpleasant. In fact, she draws rather well, and although her high-handedness and self-absorption are appalling—just today she said that if she had her way, I would never get to eat her—she is by no means the worst of her noisy, soft-skinned species.

  Dear Diary

  I have discovered that it is occasionally almost pleasant to have another voice around the cave—as long as that voice is not raised in song, I hasten to say. But when the caterwauling stops, we from time to time have conversations, and I find myself enjoying the give and take.

  Princess Lillian does not seem to miss the castle all that much. “They never let me do anything there,” was her explanation. “No one lets me draw—they insist it is not ladlylike. All they want me to do is stand around and swoon at how handsome the knights are. Piffle to that, I say.”

  That made a kind of sense, but then she asked me why I live alone, which made no sense at all. How else should I live, I could not help asking. Dragons do not clump together in herds, like sheep and humans.

  “But haven’t you ever been married? Aren’t there any female dragons?”

  If I have chosen a lonely, even monastic life, that is to my credit, I pointed out. It has kept my purpose high and noble.

  “And what purpose might that be?” she asked.

  Humans are for eating, and only for eating. Talking with them is pointless. I shall remember that in the future.

  Dear Diary

  Princess Lillian has been very busy with something, although she will not show me what it is. In the meantime, either her singing has improved, or my ear for music has been deranged by her constant tone-deaf warbling, because in the middle of a quiet afternoon today (I was finishing up yesterday’s entry and she was working on her current mysterious project) I caught myself tapping my foot to one of her melodies.

  I thought I had centuries to go until senility might be a concern, but I cannot help being worried.

  Dear Diary

  Sir Greg (who says is the least objectionable of all the knights, although “not exactly,” as she put it, “the most tightly-wound ribbon on the Maypole”) appeared in front of the cave again. But before I could go out and contest him with fire and talon, the princess asked me to take him something. Two things, actually: a large envelope and one of tiny, human size.

  After Sir Greg had read the contents of the small one, he turned and went galumphing off on his horse without a word. I was quite ready for a fierce battle, so of course I was very disappointed, but it will leave a bit more time this afternoon for dusting my collection of Crusader helmets.

  When I asked Lillian what all that had been about, she only smiled. She does it on purpose, I am certain—perhaps even practices when I am sleeping. No one can be so annoying by accident.

  Dear Diary

  I woke up this morning to a most unusual sound. When I opened my eyes, I was doubly surprised, first to discover that Princess Lillian had left her hiding hole, secondly to see that she was sweeping the cave!

  I briefly considered devouring her, more out of reflex than anything else, but I have rather gone off the idea now. Still, I wondered if she might take the opportunity and bolt out of the cave and back to the castle and the family that is presumably missing her. Instead, after she had swept the midden out the front door (I’m certain I had some sheep bones there with some perfectly good marrow left in them!), she dusted the Crusader helmets (I’m afraid I had forgotten again) and even straightened the old volumes of my journal. Then she took more sheepskins and went back to her hole.

  Does that mean she actually wants to stay here? With me? What an odd thought.

  Dear Diary

  Princess Lillian has decided to come out into the main part of the cave in the evenings, because she says the light is better for drawing. At her request, I even lit a fire. Now we shall need a chimney. Women are certainly a botheration! It is more than ever clear to me why I am so happy in my bachelorhood.

  Still, it is not entirely unpleasant to have some company.

  Dear Diary

  Hah! I knew it was a mistake to become so sentimental and forgiving. That princess-thing has taken a completely unacceptable liberty. I am furious! If I had not already rashly promised her that I would not devour or otherwise harm her, and were a dragon’s word not his solemn bond, I would toast her on the spot.

  She has sent her brainless suitor off on a quest to locate a female dragon, and worse than that, he has found one! This morning he came clumping up and left this letter on my doorstep.

  Dear Mr. Vermistorix,

  (that baggage Lillian has learned my name from my journals! So much for privacy!)

  I read your letter with interest.

  (What letter?)

  Yes, I too have often thought that it was a shame that we dragons must establish our territories so far apart. Although I am happy here in my high mountain home, with my books and my puma, Browniekin, for company…

  (Browniekin! It is worse than I could have imagined! No wonder I have remained a bachelor.)

  …there are moments when I too have wondered what it would be like to spend my time in the company of a kindred soul.

  (Reading this, I cannot bear to think what nonsense about me the princess-thing has put in her forged letter.)

  Should you care to correspond, this kind little human says he will be pleased to act as courier for any missive you might wish to send.

  Respectfully yours,

  Ms. Ophidia Montedraco

  The most shocking thing is, the princess was not even ashamed. In fact, she pretended not to understand why I am angry. “You’re lonely,” she said. “And I can’t hang around forever.”

  Words failed me. I pushed the rock in front of the doorway again—at the very least, it will prevent her hatching any more schemes with her wooden-headed paramour—and went out to swoop some steadings. I burned a barn and a deserted church, then felt very foolish. All that waste of flame and flying, and not a single sheep snaffled, knight sizzled, or presumptuous princess scorched.

  Dear Diary

  Somehow I have been talked into sending a letter back to Ms. Montedraco—Ms.? Have even the dragons of today fallen into modernistic nonsense? What is a Ms., anyway? It sounds like an insect buzzing. Here is a copy of what I wrote.

  Dear etc.

  Very pleasant to hear from you. I of course am a confirmed bachelor, and quite content with my lot in life, but would be willing from time to time to indulge in a civil correspondence.

  Yours respectfully, and so on.

  The princess, not content to have ruined my peaceful life, also insists on sending along a portrait of me, although what purpose that can serve I have no idea. Does she think Ms. Montedraco has never seen another dragon before?

  I have not worn any of these things since the graduation revels at Reptilicus University, absolutely centuries ago. They do fit surprisingly well, though, don’t they?

  Dear Diary

  Sir Greg has come thumping and bumping back with another letter. I find myself oddly eager to read it, so I have put it off until after tea. I suppose it is not entirely a bad thing to have some conversation with another of my kind after all these years.

  Dear Flammiferus (if I may call you by your first name),

  (and who told her my first name? I signed my missive with a dignified “F. Vermistorix, esq.”)

  Your bold words intrigue me. Although I had thought myself reconciled to spinsterhood, I feel a certain fire now burning in my womanly heart where after many cold years, the last embers had almost been extinguished.

  (Bold words? Was it my cautious use of
the verb “indulge”? I agonized over that.)

  I have thought long and hard about your invitation, and think that I can indeed find some time in my schedule to come and visit you near the end of the month. Maidenly modesty forbids me to suggest how much I am looking forward to a personal meeting.

  WHAT?!

  Smolderingly,

  Ophidia

  Dear Diary

  I have recovered a bit from my upset of yesterday, and most of the smoke in the cave has now cleared.

  Princess Lillian had the unbelievable gall to chide me for my outburst. “You singed the hem of my dress,” she said. I told her she was lucky I had not broiled her like a mutton sausage.

  “Lots of people get nervous in this situation,” she told me. “I’m sure she’ll like you—she liked your picture, after all.”

  Somehow I have lost all ability to argue with this mad young girl. The only course open to me now is to move, to fly away. Somewhere in the deserts to the south there must a cave where an old hermit can live out his last days, undisturbed by princesses or predatory dragon-maidens. I shall pack tonight.

  Dear Diary