A Strange Meeting
short story (1996)
The man stood long below the summit of Agvara and absorbed the mountain air.
He stood on a huge slab of rock that jutted out, over a west-facing cliff, into a slowly breaking day. Behind his back the peak rose up a steep slope to a tall but jagged point, and a thin layer of crisp snow lay around his feet. The cold mountain wind whistled across the crest.
Motionless, the man seemed a match for the soaring mountainscape. He was tall, and wore a long loose robe, greyish blue flecked with brown, that was fluttered and flapped about him by the wind. His booted feet were planted in the snow, shoulder-width, and his arms were crossed in front of him. He seemed from a distance to be stern and resolute in his lonely vantage.
His face though, seen close, was so peaceful and bright that it almost glowed. There was about him an air of agelessness, a starlight that was somehow old but not carried by time. But at the same moment the glow was sun-bright, young, and not yet full of the world.
His eyes were shut, but even were they open they could not have seemed more aware of their environment. Feathery hair, coloured like his cloak, curled about his face and shoulders, a restless animal in the chill wind; but there he stood, stone-still and silent, meditating. His breath slowly rose and fell in his chest.
The man's face twitched almost imperceptibly as a strong wind roared past the peak and swirled around him.
The sun peeked over a distant ridge and the first rays of daylight coursed over the summit and danced like sparkles in the blowing snow.
Suddenly there was a wide rushing sound as if air was being shoved aside by great wings. It poured over the peak and the ledge. The sun blinked, and the man's eyes flew open as a roar like the hissing of a snake and growl of a lion pierced and shook the air. He spun around, saw the bright sky blocked by a great silvery form that bore down on him. It fell like a boulder out of the sky-a flying monster, a thousand gleaming daggers outstretched. It struck instantly, followed by a thunderous boom; shimmering crimson sparks flew wildly from beneath the claws.
For an instant time seemed to stop and the creature hung in the air, grappling the man—now somehow enveloped in a radiant mist, perhaps a glow of death, for his seemed certain. Then: an ear-ringing crash, the monster swept down its wings and fell upon the man, smothering him with its silvery body.
But a sudden hammerlike force hurled it forward. It was thrown screaming from the jutting rock out over the cliff; the flailing man followed it, his cloak still snagged by a razorlike claw.
Together they plummeted in a rain of rock shattered by their collision, a twisting creature of rippling silver skin and a streaming blue cloaked man. Down the cliff with whistling speed through the air they fell. They struck the mountainside below with a terrible crunching of rock and a boom of thunder. The silver beast rolled as it struck, and curling its featherless wings about it, slid down the hill, crushing ancient trees into splintered stumps. The man, thrown free in the impact, tumbled down in its wake past sparse trees, grasses and boulders.
Like a landslide they went and sent flocks of birds screaming into the sky, until the massive creature, spreading out its claws dug into the slope and ground to a stop. It faced upwards and its great spiked tail whipped the ground below it. A horned head and a great draconian jaw faced up the hill and mist curled from its snout. Its eyes were huge and seemed keen and unbothered by the earth-shaking fall. Watching quickly up at the figure tumbling down the mountain side towards it, the beast made to catch him in gleaming claws:
"Drem Agato!" yelled the man as the claws began to close around him.
Instant reaction! The monster started and dropped him on the ground. Then with one eye it peered down at him, a shocked look slowly replacing the hunter's gleam.
The man lay on a rock, his blue-brown coat about him. His hair was splayed flat on the ground around his head, and his face held a surprised expression though his eyes still flickered red. Inexplicably he appeared unhurt, and was not scratched by the tremendous fall, though his cloak was torn at the hem. He pushed himself up on his hands then sprang to his feet, his hair leaping about him, and focused his gaze on the silver creature that crouched before him. Their eyes met.
He had not yet seen it clearly. A silver snake, shining fist-sized scales reflecting the slanting sunlight; it was a reptilian hawk, with great wings wide as a house, but not feathered—instead appearing like curved quicksilver spread to swiftly catch the breeze. Its tail curled out behind it and was tipped with sharp diamond spikes that jutted swiftly into the air. It crouched low now on legs and arms that were tight and poised to spring. And, face to face with the small-seeming man it held its reptilian head now, black eyes below sharp horns peering sharply into his.
"Mrnegletin Segnam?" it growled.
"Winged dragon, I speak to you in the tongue of the Roenari: I am Sitar, more than a talking animal I assure you. You must not attack me!" declared the man.
The creature's lips slowly frowned as if in thought, recalling something long cupboarded in the store of its mind. Finally it opened its mouth, and in revealed itself to be more than a beast; in plain language it spoke: "Gregann . . . I've never seen your, rrm, Regletin, before. Are you not food?" It sniffed at Sitar and then pulled its head back. "Grrrum . . ." The dragon raised an armlike eyebrow and its teeth gleamed.
"No," replied Sitar.
There was a pause in which the wind blew across the tree-specked slope. The sun rose imperceptibly in the sky. Sitar stood and gazed at the dragon seeming exceedingly unperturbed.
"You are very strangely made," said the dragon finally. "You stand on two legs like a Taernitg, but have no, rrm, wings. And your fur seems to be loose. And you have much more . . . Grrenmar in you than you look."
"I am a Roenar," replied Sitar, tilting his head. "I will tell you about it. But first—what is your name, dragon?"
"Name . . . name . . ." the dragon considered this. "My mother called me Tharmogleden, but, grrm, said I'm Quilm in this tongue. Is that right? I have not seen her since fifty summer ago," it added.
As if a fire had unexpectedly kindled, Sitar brightened. "Indeed, Tharmogleden, Quilm." His hair curled around his neck and shoulders, and he continued, "I may know your parentage." He peered at the dragon and stepped back to see more clearly. A faint mist of sternness and puzzlement that had creased his brow lessened. He said:
"Is not your mother Engalamarlen, and your father Temdertin? These serpents I have met . . and now it would seem their son. You are like them."
He walked around the dragon, who snaked his head around to follow him. "This fair, wide and empty land is surely a place well-suited for the birth of a dragon-child," finished Sitar and returned to stand in front of the creature. "I forgive you the hole in my coat. May this meeting yet be fruitful!" and brightly he thrust out his hand.
"You know my mother?" the monster asked carefully.
"Yes, we have met."
"Rrrrm," he paused and sat thoughtfully. "Well, I agree to speak with you, " said the dragon, and batted Sitar's hand away with a long claw.
"Come, Quilm, let us descend from this rocky spot," said Sitar, and leapt like a deer down the hill towards a stream valley below. He moved quickly, and the dragon, spreading his great wings, swooped down after him.
When Quilm glided down to the valley he found Sitar sitting cross-legged by the stream in the shade of an oak tree. The winged serpent settled across from him and folded his wings against his body. He looked up at the sky, at the peak they had come from, and then back down at the Roenar.
"How did you do that?" he finally asked.
"Tiana," said Sitar cryptically. "You see, I can leap like a gazelle, fight like a lion and move like the wind. Yet, I have not the strength of a dragon-so it is fortunate for me that you are still a child. I am hard pressed to overcome the dive of even a young flying serpent. You move quietly."
"Thank-you," the dragon said. He seemed pleased with this compliment, and added, "I have been practising."
"Good. You still have much to learn if you have not heard of my people, though," continued Sitar.
"But I will tell you some stories . . . if you have the desire to hear them. I, for one, am new to these mountain lands and would gladly hear your lore. And being you a dragon, and I a Roenar, we surely have much to tell, and long lives in which to tell it . . ."
The morning sun climbed past faint cirrus-clouds high into the sky.