The Saint of Dragons - Jason Hightman

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      “I’m listening,” said Simon.

      “The dragon is a creature of unspeakable evil. It is a monster. A wretched liar, an insatiable thief and a despicable killer. I say ‘is’ because this creature isn’t an animal made up out of the imagination, or from the distant past. It is real, it is alive, and it is at work in the world today. Living out there somewhere in the shadows.”

      He pushed away his plate. “Fact is, up until recent times, there were great numbers of them. I’ve spent my life hunting them down, one by one.”

      “You hunt down dragons,” said Simon doubtfully. “The giant scaly reptiles. With big wings and huge teeth.”

      “No,” said Aldric. “They haven’t looked like that for centuries.”

      “What?”

      “Well, dragons haven’t stayed the same since the dawn of time,” he explained. “They’ve moved on like everything else. They’ve changed, evolved. They look like men now, mostly. They stand two or three feet taller than an average fellow, unless they’re hunched over. They walk like men do, on two feet. They have two heavy, muscular arms. Their bodies are smaller than they used to be, so they can hide under a big coat, but their skin is reptile skin and their blood is green, and warm to the touch. Their heads are man-sized and their faces reptilian. Their eyes are glassy green or yellow or pitch-black ugly.

      “We don’t even call them dragons, that’s how different they are now. They’re more like Dragonmen. We call them Draconians, or Reptellans. Some people call them Serpentines, or Pyrothraxes.”

      “Pyro …?” Simon tried to say it.

      “Pyrothraxes. Pyro, meaning fire,” Aldric rattled on, as if all of this was everyday knowledge. “They use fire as their chief weapon, but not because they need to. These days, dragons have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of ordinary people working for them. Dragons can be found in business, in politics; most are in charge of organised crime at the top levels. They can be found in every country on Earth. Their men do their bidding now with knives and guns and bombs just like all criminals, but the dragon has a special place in his heart for fire. They simply love fire and can never get enough of it. You can never be sure what they’ll do with it. You’ll learn about that.

      “Most of them are rich too. That makes it hard to find them, to catch them. But they like to walk the streets – most people have walked right past one without knowing it – and sooner or later I pick up on where they’ve been. Their magic leaves behind unwanted side effects. Wherever there are strange things going on, you can bet a dragon has been in the vicinity.”

      “And you destroy them?” asked Simon.

      “Every single one of them I find,” said Aldric, with a gleam in his eye. “In fact, I think I’ve found just about the last of them.”

      “Sounds like you’ve done pretty well out there on your own,” said Simon, trying to humour him. “What do you need me for?”

      “You,” said Aldric, “are about to join the family business. Dragonhunting.”

       CHAPTER FIVE

       A Brief History of Dragons

      “Some things you’ll learn on the job,” said Aldric, and he took out an old curly pipe, relaxing for the first time since Simon had met him. “And some of it you need to know right away.”

      Simon reclined against the wall. The ship swayed gently and pipe smoke filled the room with a pungent smell.

      Aldric began. “Nobody knows when the first dragon was sighted, but it must have been a very long time ago. They began their lives right after man began to walk the earth. They were born when the first man had his first evil thought. They grew like a tiny worm in his head, and when the man died and was buried, they went into the ground and spread. From this tiny beginning, many more of them grew from tough, leathery eggs hidden deep in the earth. White, like a spider’s eggs they were, but giant. When the young dragons hatched, they crawled their way to the surface. They have caused constant trouble for humankind ever since.

      “What does a dragon want? It wants nothing more than to cause people pain, fear and sadness. The dragon feeds on these things. It is attracted to human misery – it thrives on it, in much the same way that plants need sunlight and water.

      “Whenever a person feels down, the dragon wants to be nearby. It crawls underground and feels with its tongue for vibrations of sadness. It sucks up the sadness right through its skin and this makes the creature stronger. In turn, a dragon through its magic can make people more unhappy. Whenever a person feels self-doubt, whenever a person thinks he or she cannot succeed, that life is not worth a penny, it’s a good bet a dragon is the reason. Nothing causes more evil in the world than self-hatred. When a person hates himself, he will do terrible things. He wants everyone to feel as bad as he does. A dragon loves to make people hate themselves.”

      And does a dragon make people go mad? wondered Simon, still looking at Aldric with distrust. The man went on raving, and when Simon tried to interrupt, he only raised his voice.

      “Dragons have always wanted to dominate mankind. They need us, but they see us as pests. Vermin. There are so many of us that the serpents have never been able to wipe us all out. But they try. They try to thin our numbers. They try to get us to wipe ourselves out by tricking us into hating each other. There were only two thousand dragons at the height of their power and they could never get rid of the millions and billions of people in the world.

      “You see, Pyrothraxes see themselves as better than humans, superior in intelligence. Stronger. They cannot stand humans because, to them, humans are weak.

      “Add to that the fact that humans hate fire. Pyrothraxes love fire. Their favourite place is inside the heart of a good blazing fire. They play with fire, they eat fire, they sleep in fire. Most of the time when you hear about a building going up in smoke, it was a Pyrothrax having some fun.”

      Aldric lit a match, to show Simon the power of a simple flame. He put it into Simon’s hand, nearly burning him, as he continued.

      “Ow!” said Simon.

      “And that is but a small taste of a dragon’s power. The worst part is, they are addicted to fire. They have to have it, and more and more of it every time. If the Pyrothrax had no fire, he would go mad. And, since humans are the enemy of fire, dragons are the enemy of humans.

      “For a long time, there were warriors who would fight dragons alongside certain magicians who had learnt about serpent trickery. Each warrior had a magician to help him. In ancient Egypt, magicians banished the most terrible beast, the Serpent Queen, into a never-ending slumber and sent her away into a shadow realm, never to be seen again. Dragons have never forgiven the humans for doing this.

      “Over the millennia, dragons were hunted down until there weren’t many left, and very few females to continue the species. So the serpents retreated from man, into hiding. Slowly they changed themselves. They made themselves smaller and outwardly more like us, so they could live in cities and towns and not be noticed. They learnt a kind of magic that would make people see what the serpents wanted them to see.

      “Today, because of this magic, a man could look a dragon right in the eye and not see it for what it really is. The dragon can make itself look like another ordinary human being, unless it’s an old dragon, or a weak one whose magic is wearing thin. But you and I are special, Simon. We can see right through that magic.

      “In the past few years, the serpents have grown very strong. They have turned the tables on us. They have hunted down all of the magicians, every last one. There are no magicians left. And there are only two knights left. Me … and you, Simon.”

      “Me? I’m

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