The Tale of the Friend of Dragons

Baba Gene cleared his throat:

“This tale was passed onto me by a Rinpoche who had fled Tibet on foot. I met him as he came over one of the highest and most inaccessible passes in the Northern reaches of the Himalaya. His party had suffered terribly in blinding snow storms and in the commotion he had become separated from his guides.

He was suffering from frostbite and fever, mumbling to himself in some Tibetan dialect. I took him into my cave and nursed him on dal and date soup for three weeks until he felt strong enough to continue his trek to Dharamsala, where he intended to join the Dalai Lama. But before he left he told me that the only thing that had kept him going as he stumbled through the mountains, lost and alone, were the stories that his grandmother used to tell him when he was a child. He had repeated them to himself as he walked and the warmth of the memory had kept the cold at bay.

Politely declining the offer of a chillum, he accepted a final cup of chai and he began to tell me the favourite of his grandmother’s tales, set in the foothills of Eastern Tibet and all absolutely true, he swore. Although he spoke not a word of Hindi his English was very good and he sat down by this very dhuni to tell me the tale. His eyes narrowed as he began to speak.

“The chilly blue waters of Lake Kahrol were awoken and stirred by a spoon of sunlight scaling the rocky heights that still kept the local teahouse in the shade. The early morning customers sipped tall glasses of green tea and became as refreshed as the crisp, bright day itself. Two old men hunched over the only chess board in use and local poets sat alone on the terrace, gazing into the mist on the far side of the lake for inspiration.

Suddenly the mountains trembled and everyone looked up to the far-right as a growl echoed like thunder through the valley. A sheet of flame whipped out of a cave, flaring in the shadows and, just ahead of it, a tiny figure leapt out without regard to where he landed. The man bounced and skidded down the slope, leaping from boulder to boulder in a desperate skipping motion, out of control until he leapt clear and splashed into the far shallows of the lake.

Satisfied chuckles circulated through the teahouse and many of the customers approached the counter to leave a contribution - their friend would be needing a shot of Arak Spirit after his freezing swim. Twenty minutes later, the athlete of the early morning emerged shaking from the severe embrace of the lake and, much to the unease of her parents, the young lady of the teahouse was waiting on the shore to greet him with a hot towel.

By the time the couple climbed the hill she was still fussing over the burns on his shoulders and neck incurred in his recent adventure - we celibates know the mercy of abstaining from relationships with women. But this young man patiently endured her nursing and took a seat as she applied paste of aloe to his charred skin, gladly accepting the hot Arak handed to him by the others.

"When my daughter has quite finished tending you, Adiv," The landlord, Bose, remarked, his ancient features giving nothing away "Perhaps you'd like to share your story with us - We never do know if it will be your last."

Chuckles accompanied the rapping of glasses upon the porcelain tables as all present clamoured for the tale. Sunlight struck Adiv's face as he composed himself and they realized how different he was to them: His eyes were stretched back and deeply set, their focus always trained upon some distant sight. Creases grooved deep in his forehead and hinted at a dissatisfaction with Life that prompted him to explore the precipitous edge of experience. Adiv spoke:

"It has been said that dragons are like women - One never knows where one stands with them until, without warning, they turn around and hit you with all they have." This provoked general laughter all round but he felt the cold cloth at his neck become tense, "However, I have never come across this kind of tenderness from a dragon." He smiled at his nurse and received the same in reward.

"Dragons are the most ancient of all beings now on Earth - Some even older than our host, Bose, here. And though they spend centuries asleep in their caves, dreaming of plunder, killing and gold, yet they never forget a thing. And if they are approached in the right way, they can be persuaded to unlock their memories and release secrets unknown to any man alive.

But though tremendously clever and learned, they are also immature and conceited - Not to mention quick-tempered if you get on the wrong side of them." Adiv admitted, wincing as his admirer massaged more aloe onto his thick, red blisters.

"I have sought the company of these mighty beasts ever since I learnt how to sneak out of the house without my mother knowing. I sometimes received a beating when I returned home but it was always worth it - Aah. To talk with creatures that roamed the skies when even the mountains were still young.

And always I have yearned to find the very oldest dragon of all. Well, today I reached the last stage of my quest. The beast that tried to turn me into toast was one I have been visiting for the last month. He was an old, green lump of leather called Grazzt. He was snoring loudly as I approached the mouth of the cave but I was not fooled by his guile - With a nose as long as my arm, my scent would have warned him of my approach from five minutes walk away, asleep or not.

So I stepped carefully into the mouth of the cave and beheld Grazzt curled up on his bed of gold coins, jewels and other glittering items of priceless worth.

'What a beautiful creature this is' I said aloud, 'Surely the most magnificent of all the dragons I have ever seen.' Of course, Grazzt wriggled in pleasure and winked open an eye,

“Welcome, Adiv.” He rumbled, “What have you brought for me today?” I presented him with the two young rabbits I had in my knapsack and, after sucking these, he rolled over onto his back to alllow me to rub his belly. It's the only soft spot on a dragon and if I'd had the notion, I could have slit him wide open, though I would never have escaped alive.

As I massaged the creases out of his underside so, too, I managed to encourage stories to flow from his mouth. Most of it was just senile ramblings but eventually I got him onto the subject of lineage and he admitted that there was yet one dragon older than he, living up on Sabre Peak."

The audience shivered at the name, for no one who had ever attempted to climb this, the tallest mountain of the valley, had ever returned alive. Adiv knew he had them enthralled and made the most of it by pointing towards his empty glass. Of course it was quickly refilled and he continued:

"But then I made my nearly fatal mistake. I got too excited and forgot myself as I asked: “A dragon older and greater than you Grazzt?” And no sooner than I said the word, I knew I was sunk.

“Greater? Greater? None is greater than Grazzt.” He roared and I sprang for the exit before he snapped me in two. The fire was a surprise, I admit - I assumed it had gone out decades ago - I suppose his fury was intense enough to ignite the last of it.

He was too lazy to leave his cave and finish me off and I shan't be giving him a second chance. I fancy he is still muttering furiously over the incident, looking for sympathy and solace in his useless hoards of gold." He drained his Arak and squeezed the hand of the girl beside him.

"So are you satisfied with your dragon hunting now and ready to join the rest of us in real life?" Bose asked from the kitchen door where he stood. Adiv shook his head with a tipsy chuckle:

"No, sir, I could not live with myself if I did not climb Sabre Peak to see with my own eyes the oldest that there is." He declared. The cheer dropped from the faces of his listeners and they all averted their eyes sadly.

Three days later, Adiv set off on his expedition and none expected him to return. The days passed in brooding silence and in their spare moments, the villagers cast concerned looks up at the fearsome glacier. The air was thick and heavy like before a storm and it became hard to breathe. Bose's daughter refused to eat and just sat at her bedroom window facing the mountain, crying until her eyes ran dry.

Then, the quiet was torn apart by a growl that made everyone clap their hands to their ears and the trees on the slope of Sabre Peak erupted in flame. Dense, black smoke churned out to obscure the sun and out of the fumes came gliding a dragon as red as the dawn and longer than the width of the lake. She flew high above the village, throwing all the houses into shadow and everyone ran inside, huddling together under their beds, hardly expecting to live another moment.

But the dragon had other fish to fry, other young men to roast. She returned to scour the mountain slope and the braver souls of the village crept back to their windows and winced as they saw the beast hunt for Adiv. She stabbed the hillside in lancing bursts of flame and soon all the forest was ablaze. The smell of burning pine and oak overpowered all else and the inferno blazed like an army of fire-demons summoned from one of the realms of hell.

She prowled the sky all afternoon and returned to the air the next day, obliterating the slightest sign of moving life upon her hillside. Only at the sunset of that day did the dragon seem satisfied that the intruder was destroyed and she returned to her cave. Probably to sleep for the next 300 years after so much exertion.

The village was relieved that the danger had passed yet also grieved to have lost their most adventurous and entertaining soul. They gathered the next day by the lakeside in honour of his passing and the fiddle players struck up a wailing dirge. Each person there cast a flower into the water in memory of Adiv, remembering with fondness his stories and jokes. All except for his sweetheart who refused to accept that he was dead.

"He's gone, girl and the sooner you accept it the better - No one could have survived the fire storm on that hill, no matter how brave they were." They told her. But she was not listening. Her eyes were fixed upon a man with peeling, black skin, swaying into view from around the corner of the lake.

"Is a dead man allowed to attend his own funeral?" Adiv asked, the frailty of his voice clear to all. He collapsed in exhaustion and they all ran across to help him, his love reaching there first. She was the only one who was immediately confident that it was really him - for he was barely recognizable. His eyes had been scorched from him, leaving gaping, blackened sockets and there was barely enough skin to cover the bones of his cheeks.

They carried him up to the teahouse and cushions were laid down upon the terrace floor as a bed. Arak and aloe were brought and, despite his extreme fatigue, it seemed he couldn't wait to tell the tale:

"If I never believed in the gods before then they have my apologies now. When I ran from the cave I tripped and fell. A boulder came crashing after me and I was crushed by its weight - At least three of my ribs must be broken. But it was that touch of Providence that saved me. For though the scalding smoke seared away my eyes, the stone acted as a shield against the greater part of the flames. I was covered in a veil of charcoal and I guess that's how the dragon missed me.

Some small birds came to tell me that my hunter had given up the search and I spent half the night pulling myself free from the boulder, almost running out of strength. I crawled down the hill until I came to the lake and never was I so grateful to find water. I drank my fill and then followed the edge around to where I found you celebrating my death - Sorry to disappoint you." He joked.

"And how did you come to anger the dragon so badly?" Bose asked, even he amazed this time.

"So badly? I thought I did a rather good job of it.” He grinned. “But truth be told, in all my time with dragons I have come to share their love of glittering things." He said, trying to wink but forgetting that he no longer had any eyelids.

"And as my family is poor I needed to find a suitable dowry for my fiance." Adiv withdrew from his pocket a blood red ruby carved in the shape of a heart, "If she will still have me."

It took Bose some time to become accustomed to having a blind son-in-law but he relented when he saw how business swelled - People from villages in other valleys flocked to his teahouse to see 'the Thief Who Robs Dragons of Their Very Hearts.' And now that Adiv could not wander far away on his own, his wife made sure that he never walked into danger ever again.

The rinpoche finished his story and, after blessing my dhuni, he gave me one last smile and turned to continue his journey to the sanctuary of his long-suffering people in the Western Himalaya.”

Chapter 8