Clean and sharp as a chef's cutlery, the talons slipped over the sill and into the room. Bottomless eye pools of yellow‑gold stared at her. She was not afraid this time. Maybe it was the dragon's deliberate. pace, maybe the familiar surroundings of her own apartment, but she wasn't afraid.
All the dragons in the room‑planters of clay, miniatures of china, poster paper and ceramic cup‑seemed to expand slightly, turn slightly. She felt their eyes on her.
Silent as a cat, the adamantine, shimmering body slid through the window. Once inside, it filled much of the single room. Wings unfurled, strong and wind‑defying, bumping against the ceiling.
Enthralled, she watched as it moved toward her on powerful legs. Foreclaws gripped the metal end of the bed. The magnificent head moved from side to side on the muscular iridescence of the long neck, hypnotizing her, those cabochon eyes pulling her up and into the dragon soul.
It moved slowly forward. Somehow the bed held its great weight without collapsing. Wings fluttered, irritatible in the confined space. They blotted out the ceiling and obscured any hint of the pale, sickly plaster or the weak incandescent light.
Then Ehahm‑na‑Eulae was over her, and she could have reached up and run her fingers over the thousand teeth, some curved, some straight, some hooked fanglike backward. The great eyes no longer moved independently. Both stared down into hers. Ehahm‑na‑Eulae moved a little nearer, only its tail dragging on the floor as a mesmerized Pearl listlessly dropped the cigarette. The dragon opened its mouth, and she felt fire wash over her, clean dragon flame, light at first but rising in intensity. It didn't hurt at all. She'd known it wouldn't. It cleansed and didn't hurt at all.
She embraced the flame and Ehahm‑na‑Eulae of the dragons and line of dragons that was ten thousand years old, as old as the forever freeing flame that engulfed her for the first and final time, purified and cleansed Pearl who was only seventeen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in New York City in 1946, Alan Dean Foster was raised in Los Angeles, California. After receiving a bachelor's degree in political science and a Master‑of Fine Arts in motion pictures from UCLA in 1968‑1969, he worked for two years as a public relations copywriter in a small Studio City, California, firm.
His writing career began in 1968 when August Derleth bought a long letter of Fosters and published it as a short story in his biannual Arkham Collector Magazine. Sales of short fiction to other magazines followed. His first try at a novel, The Tar‑Aiym Krang, was published by Ballantine Books in 1972.
Foster has toured extensively around the world. Besides traveling, he enjoys classical and rock music, old films, basketball, body surfing, and weight lifting. He has taught screenwriting, literature, and film history at UCLA and Los Angeles City College.
Currently, he resides in Arizona.
Short Stories - Metrognome and other Stories Page 26