The Saint of Dragons

A Brief History of Dragons

"Some things you will 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 his 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 behind it. 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."

"Dragons have always wanted to dominate mankind. They need us, but they look at humans as if we were rats or cockroaches. They see us as pests. Vermin. There are so many of us that the Serpents have never been able to wipe all of us 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 favorite 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."

"The worst part is, they can't help themselves. 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. He couldn't stand it. 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 learned 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 it 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 went away 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 learned 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. Then its magic might wear 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 not a Knight." Simon recoiled.

"You will be," said his father. "It's your duty. You see, in the MiddleAges, the Knights did battle with Dragons and destroyed most of them.A very great Knight named Saint George killed a very nasty Dragon inthe Arab desert, and from that day forward his sons and their sons, andthe entire family for centuries and centuries, went after the Dragons toprotect the world. We are his descendants, Simon. And the job must goon."

"It was the tradition of the Order of Dragonhunters to bring their sons into the battle when they reached the age of fifteen. When a boy reached fifteen, he was ready to become a Knight. But I have need of you now."

What about what I need? Simon thought to himself. What if I don't want to do this?

"I've no one to turn to," Aldric added. "My fellow Knights have all passed on. Even my brother Ormand has been killed."

"Your brother?"

"The bravest of us all. He was older than me. Smarter. Trustworthy. Good-natured—everyone loved him. I made strategy, and he held the Knights together. They were from families that long ago pledged to defend the Dragonhunters. I don't know if they would have followed me alone, had they lived. But they are all gone now. And I have work left to do."

"You want me to fight Dragons with you?" asked Simon, bewildered.

"I don't have any choice. You have to come with me, there's nowhere safe for you to go. Don't worry, boy, I'll be with you all the time now. The challenge is real, but we're up to it. And there's good news. There's only one Dragonman left to find."

Well, that was good news. Simon couldn't believe this. It was the craziest thing he'd ever heard. And since when could he count on his father for anything? If this was his father. Simon did his best not to upset the man, father or not.

"I think," he said, coughing from the awful pipe smoke, "you'd better take me back now."

Aldric looked displeased. "That place is not safe for you. You couldn't stay there if you wanted to. The Pyrothrax is looking for you. It has spies all over the world. It knows that I am the last Knight, and if they get rid of me, and you, there will be no one left to stop it. We can identify the creature—do you think it would allow that? It owes a great debt in blood to the St. George family. It would love to find you and get its revenge on all of us. That old lighthouse keeper is getting older—you think he could protect you? Don't you see? The wretched thing knows where you are. All these years I've kept you secret, but now they know you exist."

Simon's mind flashed back to the strange man in the trench coatcrossing the street, the man who seemed to have a tail. But that was just a shadow, surely. Was the man in white one of the Dragon's agents? This simply can't be happening, he thought.

Aldric interrupted his musings. "I'm sorry all of this is rushed, but I'm on to something. I think I know where the Dragon is. I was closing in on him weeks ago, but my brother called me away to help with a Serpent he'd found in the heart land. That was when I found out you were in danger. We've got to get back on the hunt. You are the only one in the world I have left. Your mother passed away years ago, and there is no more family except for you, the last of the bloodline."

Simon was shocked. He had imagined he wouldn't like his mother, whoever she was, but he always figured she was alive, out there in the world, sipping fancy wine on a big yacht and never giving him a thought. It shattered something in him to know that he would never meet her.

"We have very little time," continued Aldric. "If the Pyrothrax knows we're on his trail, he'll move on, and we'll miss our chance."

Simon was now convinced the man was off his rocker. But then Aldric added something: "I don't expect you to swallow this story without any proof. I'm going to show you what I'm talking about."

Simon's head hurt from so much information. It must have shown on his face.

"In the morning," Aldric said. " I will give you proof that the Creature is real, and things will be much clearer."

Smoke burned in Simon's eyes, and he almost wanted to faint.

"Now get some sleep," he heard his father say, but he was already slipping into dreamland, worn out. He wanted to hear the rest of the story, but his brain had shut off. It had had enough.

The real shock was that morning would prove to be even more amazing. Come morning, he would indeed be joining the family business...