by Adam Roberts
The odd thing was that, everybody agreed, she had been a remarkably conventional egg: pliant and agreeable, exactly the right plump oval shape. She had sat perfectly still for the three years of her incubation. Of course, eggs always do, being eggs. But the point is: nothing in her eggishness suggested her future rebellious manner. Nobody at the hatchery could recall a better-behaved egg. As Burnblast was in the habit of saying to his colleagues: from being an immaculately behaved egg Lizbreath had changed almost immediately upon hatching. From the very beginning she had declined to show proper deference to older dragons; had disobeyed, or displayed dumb-insolence. She had shown almost no interest in learning the codes of politeness, and often absented herself to fly solo.
Most shocking of all was her complete indifference to gold. She had not worked, like the other hatchlings, to acquire the beginnings of her own hoard. On the contrary she had vocally disdained gold as a useless, lumpish, urinously-coloured substance varying in density from cheese to dried chewing gum. Such blasphemy did not endear her to anybody.
Of course she was taken away from her family and into care – her mother was so shocked by her daughter-dragon’s words that she had retreated to a mountain-top rest-cure facility, ringed with fire. It might not have mattered if Lizbreath had been some form of lower wyrm. But she was, by blood and lineage, related to the highest, driest and fieriest dragons in the northern hemisphere: lineally a descendant of Regin the Regal, no less. She could not simply be shuffled off into a menial job and ignored.
A series of Legal Guardians had attempted, by the powers of persuasion, or by more forceful interventions, to bring her back to the proper path. All had failed. By the time the Dragon Authorities hired Burnblast, Lizbreath Salamander was a notorious tearaway and rebel. She associated with lowly wyrms, refused all invitations to Official Flypasts, Fire-balls or At-Hoards, and did worse. When word got out that she was assembling a hoard after all, some dragons breathed rose-red smoky sighs of relief. But then, one day, a Court Officer came to visit to get her to sign a legal parchment, and discovered the appalling truth: her hoard was not gold at all. It was silver!
The shock ran about Dragondom in a day. The perversity! A silver hoard? Who ever heard of such a thing! It could only be one thing: a calculated insult to the millennia-hallowed customs and traditions of dragonkind. What made it worse was that Lizbreath had gone to some lengths to assemble all the tatty, tinsel-shiny silver items upon which she now coiled herself. It was no mere whim, no passing smart-mouth quip. It was the deliberately and carefully assembled mark of deep-rooted disrespect. It meant that something was deeply awry inside Lizbreath Salamander’s dragon mind.
A job was found for her in the Saga office. It was hoped that daily exposure to the great Sagas of dragon-kind might, perhaps, instil in her some respect for the magnitude and dignity of draconic history. But it had no such effect. At first she absented herself from work, until it was made plain to her that if she continued doing so then she would be confined in a Womental Institution. After that she turned up for work at the hours specified, but she disappeared into the bowels of the Saga office, the lowest, dampest caves, and devoted her time to the most bizarre and unusual draconic Sagas.
And then there was the question of body ornamentation. Naturally, pressure was applied to get her to paint her scales. Without tint, her body was a sheeny taupe, varying in depth from supertaupe on her tail, through earthy shades of midtaupe on her midriff up to paler iridescent lowtaupe on her neck and head, all of which are colours, no really. Taupe is all very well, as a colour; and several very well regarded dragons have been taupe. But nobody could claim it is a very flaming colour. Painting was always an option. As people kept pointing out: all the colours of fire and jewellery were available to her. She could have glorified herself with phoenix hues and blazed through the sky. But she did none of those things. Instead she bought herself a silver collar, with puny little spikes on the outside. There were rumours that she was hanging out with ‘democrats’, and petty undesirables of that ilk.
And then one weekend she disappeared. When she returned on Mournday with one small painting, just under her left wingjoint. It was not of a mighty dragon hero of the past, or of abstract patterns of bright jeweller; it was not even of the representation of flames painted down her sides, as was popular with some of the younger fast-flying dragons. It was of a fantastical creature.
Even that might have been OK. Some fantastical creatures are hot: unicorns, say; or mighty tusked elephants; or Sirian StarBeasts. But what Lizbreath Salamander carried upon her body was the pale outline representation of a girl – one of those slug-soft ape creatures that had once infested the forests, and who still sometimes haunted younglings’ nightmares, or appeared in such Horror Vidisagas as could afford the special effects budgets to represent them.
Was she trying, people asked, to be hot? This painting on Lizbreath’s back was not hot. It was revolting. One small mercy was that it was quite hard to see when her wings were out; but when she tucked them away to (for instance) come inside, it was only too obviously on display.
By this stage the other Guardians had more or less given up on the job of attending to her. She was old enough, in terms of years, to be accounted an adult; but her behaviour was still that of an erratic hatchling with water on the brain. Somewhat at a loss, the Authorities had approached Burnblast.
For Burnblast was one of the most respected and impeccable senior dragons in Scandragonia. Old, traditional and immensely fat, with an impressively large hoard of ancient gold, there was nothing funny or unusual about him whatsoever.
At their first meeting, the old Attorney had drawn attention to the image of the girl on Lizbreath’s shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, although of course he knew the answer already.
‘A girl,’ Lizbreath had answered.
‘I can see that,’ boomed Burnblast. ‘Why would you paint something so horrid on yourself?’
‘It’s not paint,’ said Lizbreath.
‘Not paint?’ rumbled Burnblast.
‘I mean it is not paint. It is ink.’
‘Ink?’ he repeated, ponderously.
‘It is a tattoo.’
‘A what?’
‘That’s what it is called. It is a tattoo.’
‘Well. Ink will just rub off, soon enough, when you flap your wings.’ Yet, somehow, the image of the girl did not get rubbed away; whenever Burnblast saw Lizbreath it was still there – still as revolting, and as mysterious, as the first encounter.
Burnblast had, as he told people, ‘done his best’ with Lizbreath Salamander. ‘But though it pains me to admit it,’ he would add, spitting chunks of brimstone and picking a sheep rib from his teeth with one delicately jabbing talon, ‘success has been limited. What can I do? I only have one point of influence over her, really. Because of this affectation of hers, sitting as she does on her ridiculous hoard of silver – obviously that’s useless for the purposes of actually buying things, and so on. She is legally my ward. That means that she must come to me for money. If it weren’t for that, she might fly completely off the handle.’
And money was the purpose of this morning’s appointment. That was the only reason Lizbreath had steeled herself to scuttle along the echoey granite corridor. Sucking in a deep breath, she emerged into Burnblast’s huge cavern.
It was old-school: rough-hewn rock, illuminated by a ring of torches embedded in the granite in a vast circle. Between the torches, a circle of pennants hung limply, carrying the design of Burnblast’s coat of limbs.
Burnblast himself sat on an immense golden hoard that dominated the space. It was, if nothing else, a testament to his great age and skill in accumulating gold: it embodied in concrete material form the respect with which he was regarded by dragondom. Since his business involved meeting other dragons, Burnblast kept his hoard broad and low, arranged around a rising granite spur that enabled clients to climb and be on a level with him without committing the faux pas of treading upon h
is gold. Lizbreath though, loitered sulkily at the bottom, and Burnblast had to summon her specifically. ‘Come up,’ he said.
Reluctantly, Lizbreath clambered up. Burnblast was a huge, gnarled figure. When he shifted his weight and settled down he spread, the way a toad does. But there was nothing soft about him. His scales, though they jagged and snaggled in all sorts of directions, were nonetheless thick and tough. They presented no gaps or bald patches. Indeed, rather to the contrary they bristled with a more intimidating, stalagmitish or porcupiney force precisely because they were not being regularly tiled like other dragons. His coloration was black, except for his fanta-coloured eyes, bright and fizzing with cunning. His incidental fire, when it flickered from the sides of his mouth in myriad little almond-shaped flames, was the pale purple of methylated spirits.
‘So,’ he boomed. ‘Lizbreath Salamander. What brings you to my lair this fine, fiery day?’
Lizbreath did not meet his eyes. ‘You know why I’m here,’ she said. ‘Money.’
‘Of course, money. I could hardly expect that you would wish to come to see your Legal Guardian for any other reason! Not, for example, to pay your respects.’
‘Pay,’ said Lizbreath. ‘That’s an apt way of putting it.’
Burnblast ignored this. ‘For what do you need this money, exactly?’
‘Living,’ said Lizbreath, in a surly tone, ‘expenses.’
‘I see. And you find your famous hoard of silver is of no use to you, I suppose.’ When Lizbreath didn’t answer this, he went on: ‘You understand, my dear, how foolish this rebellious gesture was? All that effort assembling a perfectly useless hoard – all the work you did, and now it’s no use to you at all! Cutting off your snout to spite your face. So instead of standing on your own four feet, you must keep crawling back to me!’
Lizbreath growled low, but said nothing.
‘Oh don’t worry, my dear,’ said Burnblast. ‘I shall give you some money. But I would be failing in my duty to you as Guardian if I didn’t ask you a few questions first. To discover the sort of life my ward is living. Are you still working with Sagas?’
When Lizbreath grunted, Burnblast prompted her: ‘I’m afraid you really must answer me with words, my dear, or this conversation will be elongated unconscionably, and you’ll never get your funds.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Which department?’
‘I work in the archives of a Starkhelm Saga company.’
‘Very good. And how is your private life?’
‘My what?’
‘Your private life! Don’t be shocked, my dear. I’m hardly a stranger, after all. It is my duty, as your Guardian, to ensure that you are keeping respectable company. I’m as aware of the rumours as everybody – loitering in damp buildings with lower-class wyrms, associating with known democratic dragons.’ Burnblast shook his head. ‘All very bad.’
‘My private life,’ said Lizbreath, ‘is very unexceptional.’
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
‘As you know, legally I cannot become hamfasted without your permission.’
‘That’s true. But I’m not talking about anything so official. I’m sure you have boydragons interested in you. Come, you can tell me.’
‘There’s nobody in particular,’ said Lizbreath, reluctantly.
‘And sex?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Come, my dear, don’t be coy. You’re hardly a virgin, now, are you.’
‘Why is this relevant to me getting my allowance?’
‘You must permit me to be the judge of what is relevant, my dear. The Dragonlords have placed me in authority over you. Accepting that authority is a necessary part of your larger integration into dragon society.’
Lizbreath lowered her head.
‘So,’ said Burnblast, scratching his snout with one curved talon big as a hippo’s ribbone. ‘You do have a sex life?’
Lizbreath held a pause just long enough for it to register as insolent. Then she answered in a surly voice: ‘From time to time. I assume it’s the same for you—’
Burnblast wagged a talon back and forth. ‘Now, now, my dear. Do not get above yourself. What I do with respect to sex is not your business. But what you do is mine. You like it?’
‘I guess.’
‘I bet you do! Are you – adventurous?’
‘What ?’
‘I think you heard me.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean by adventurous.’
‘Come, now. Use your imagination. For instance: How do you feel about,’ he dropped his voice, conspiratorially, ‘oral sex?’
Lizbreath blinked. ‘About what?’
‘Oral sex. How do you feel about it?’
She looked at him, twitched her nostrils, and asked: ‘What kind of ore? Precious metals? Iron?’
‘No, no. The word is oral as in: relating to the mouth.’
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. ‘Relating what to the mouth?’
‘Relating a dragon’s – intimate organ. To the mouth.’
She was silent for a long minute, regarding him closely with her golden eyes. Then she said: ‘You’re asking me about having… sex in the mouth?’
‘Precisely!’
‘So, let me get this clear in my head. “Oral” sex: a male dragon unsheathes his delicate member from its protective bony covering, and puts it – in all its tender vulnerability – into the mouth of a female dragon?’
‘Or male dragon – but, yes, you describe it perfectly.’
‘That same mouth,’ Lizbreath went on, ‘from which fire blasts out on a regular basis? Flames hot enough to turn steel into soup, to blast solid lead into hot black oil ? That mouth?’
‘Indeed.’
‘The mouth that can generate temperatures of up to 600 degrees Centigrade?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘How do I feel about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘I feel sorry for any male dragon foolish enough to try it. Is how I feel.’
‘So, would you say that the idea disgusts you?’ There was a weird gurgle in his voice as he asked this. ‘That it makes your scales rattle and your flesh creep? It repels you?’
‘I’d say it repels sanity. It sounds crazy. What male dragon would risk it?’
Burnblast squirmed, and tapped the tips of his slippery wings against his flanks – with, Lizbreath could see, a strange kind of delight. The thought of incinerating his member filled him not with a healthy aversion, but with whatever the opposite of aversion is. With zversion. What a creepy old dragon he was!
‘Ah!,’ he said, ‘but the risk is what makes it exciting! Or,’ he added, twisting his tentacular neck to look over his wing, as if making sure nobody was eavesdropping. ‘Or so I have heard, at any rate. Rumour says that some male dragons prefer it to regular sex.’
‘Some male dragons could do with a few sessions with a Fireudian analyst, it seems to me,’ noted Lizbreath, sardonically. ‘Either that, or Aversion Therapy. With icicles.’
‘So,’ said Burnblast, lifting his huge phoenix-feather pen in his right claw, and writing something on the scroll in front of him. ‘You’d say that you find the idea of oral sex repellent.’
‘You do realize,’ Lizbreath pointed out, as if explaining to an idiot, ‘that if a female dragon becomes sexually aroused, she can’t help but spew fire from her mouth? That’s not something we have any control over, you know.’
‘Ah!’ said Burnblast, ‘now, yes, you raise a very interesting question. Female sexual arousal. How do you feel about that?’
‘You’re an extraordinarily creepy old dragon,’ said Lizbreath, snapping her wings out briskly enough to make the pennants flutter fifty feet away. ‘And I have no intention of answering any more of your disgusting, prurient questions.’
‘Oh, but my dear young Lizbreath,’ smarmed Burnblast. ‘You must answer them! You are my ward, after all.’
‘I could be your entire hospital, I
still wouldn’t answer your questions.’ She leapt up and trod the air, moving backwards away from him. ‘Whatever the laws says, I’m a mature dragon,’ she called to him. ‘Leave me alone.’
In an instant he was up beside her, his vast wings spread out so as to half-enclose her, and blotting out the red torchlight in the process. She could hear his huge wings slap against the vaulted stone ceiling of his cavern.
It was undeniably the case that he was much larger than her. His hind claws grabbed her about her slender waist, and she was borne downward onto the granite floor. She landed with a thumpingly solid impact. It hurt. His huge, elongated head swung from side to side, and little spurts of iridescent purple flame darted from his mouth and slid over the scales of her snout. They weren’t hot enough to warm her face, but she could smell him in them and it wasn’t a pleasant smell. ‘Going somewhere?’ he sneered. ‘Without my permission? How rude you are!’ Burnblast drew his huge bellying wings round and lashed out with both his hindlegs at once, driving her hard against the floor so that her ribs creaked and her breath left her in dribbles of smoke. With one of his sinewy foreclaws, he grabbed Lizbreath’s left wing-joint, right in there by the tender shoulder, near her tattoo. Lizbreath couldn’t stop herself wailing with the pain. She struggled, but he was simply too powerful for her. ‘You haven’t washed off this odd little painting, then?’ he hissed.
‘It won’t,’ Lizbreath gasped, ‘wash off.’
‘I suggest you scrub harder, my dear,’ he said, breathing the words hotly right into her ear.
‘Let me go,’ she complained, trying to twist her head away from his breath.
‘You go,’ said Burnblast, ‘when I say you may go, and not before.’ He thrust his wing-elbows forward, together, to squash her head down against the stone floor, and prevent her from looking behind.
‘You are hurting me,’ she complained, hating herself for her weakness in speaking at all. But her shoulders rasped with the pain, and she intensely disliked being forced down like this.