"The Gilded Circle"

The sleeping dragon's breath gleamed on the twisted and slagged treasures piled around it. It was a banked forge ready to flare at the faintest touch. It felt the small hand that closed on one of its trinkets like the creature was touching its flesh. Light footsteps echoed on the stone as the dragon roused itself.

          It shook its limbs to loosen its joints; calcified scales rained down around its claws as it dug them into the stone. The dragon dragged its swollen self over its hoard and discarded bones toward the faint smell of fresh air blowing in from the entrance. Its tarnished scales scraped on stone that was already worn almost smooth.

         It breathed in gasps by the time it cleared the entrance to the lair. The dragon stuck there; it forced its bulk outward. It saw the adventurers arrayed out there at the same time it felt, more than heard, the rumble behind it and the screech of stone on stone.

          Two men in steel, one of them short and broad. An elf in a flowing gown. The dragon knew the way they tasted; it needed another meal. The beast drew in a breath, an orange shadow flared in its nostrils—it backfired loudly as a massive bear rocked into it from the side, but here was no world in which that was enough to knock the wyrm over. It snarled and lifted a paw to attack—and there was suddenly a tiny morsel in leather underneath it, stabbing at its soft belly. The dragon roared its pain. It couldn't reach there; instead, it made to drop onto the Halfling, but the bear was in its face again.

          It tried to draw in another breath for flame, but black spots crowded its vision. The taller man was at its flank, stabbing. The dragon kicked out with a foot; its claws punched through the steel like air. On the other side, the dwarven cleric uttered words that lingered in the air; the dragon did not understand, but it saw the human getting back to his feet. Each time it bit or clawed or swept with its tail, the dwarf spoke. Holy words gleamed in the air. The dragon turned its slitted eyes on the dwarf. It moved all in a spasm to knock aside the bear and the fighter. It lunged forward--the elf, behind the dwarf, gestured. For a moment, there was only a rabbit charging forward. It tripped over own heaving belly, tumbled, and then snapped into shape. It snaked its neck out to lunge with its massive, wedge-shaped head. The Halfling was on its back, stabbing her knives between its scales. The fighter was hacking at its belly. The bear--the bear sank its teeth into the dragon's neck. Biting blood sizzled onto its brown muzzle.

          The dragon reared up, the bear dangling there and ripping further, and came down hard on the fighter. Its jaws knocked aside the fighter's sword, and it in turn drove its teeth into the man.

          "Aldon!" Fluid words in elven preceded the bitter smell of ozone as the mage called down lightning. The fighter baked inside his armor; the lightning arced from the him, searing and frying the dragon from the inside out.

          The Halfling had reached her feet again after being knocked from the dragon's back. She rolled in under its swiping paw to shove her knife in at its jawline; the bear had its claws hooked into its face to keep it from rearing again as she sliced the cooked, living flesh from tongue to clavicle. It shook its head, but the bear hung on. The dragon hissed wetly. It twisted its arm down and then upward, driving its claws into the bear's belly and rib cage.
              "Devk!" The Halfling was already on the dragon, stabbing and slashing. The bear stiffened and released the wyrm's face. The wyrm's eyes flared wider as the dire bear rippled and became an orc in a wave of fallen fur. With his reduced size, the dragon's claws protruded through his flesh and leather armor. Another word in elven, and a fireball rolled over the ground to strike the dragon. The dwarven cleric, the Halfling, and the dragon itself all turned to look at her. Then, the dragon drew in a deep, deep breath; orange light flared in its nostrils.

            And then the dragon knew nothing.

           It woke to a field of white, but it was not winter. Had not been winter. It blinked bleary eyes at the white cliff it was coiled beside, and then blinked again at the scrape of its eyelids against its eyes. Something laughed. "Yes! It worked!" The dragon tilted its head until its sinuous neck was folded almost double. It stiffened and snarled at the sight of something--some humanoid--looming over it.

          "Oh, shh. You lovely--" It shied away from the elf's hand, but she was already pulling back. "Verna, something's wrong." "What?" That voice was much fainter. The dragon drew further back when the elf tried to reach again; it almost plummeted off of the edge of the bed until it drove in its claws.

           "Ow! Oh, come here." It struggled, but she locked her fingers in under one of its plates and pulled it back up. "Yes, definitely ceramic." The dragon lashed its tail and flexed its claws. Its wings—it didn't have wings. It didn't have wings? "Stop it, wyrm! I haven't healed."

            "Ceramic?" said that faint voice. "Once it baked that clay in its own fire and perished, it was supposed to be the dragon reborn!"

            "Well," the bandaged elf said, "It kind of worked? I mean, it's reborn, alive, when it should be dead?"

            "That isn't alive. It's an abomination!"

            "I think it's a dragon, Verna," the elf on the bed said. She tilted her hand mirror toward the dragon. The figure on the other side was tiny, but it was another elf in furs and leather. The dragon canted its head one way and then the other, tensed, and then pounced. The elf on the other side shrieked a muffled cry as the dragon's gold-rimmed beak clinked on the glass.

             "We're salvaging the dragon's eggs from its lair and body,” Verna said. “Get rid of—that. It’s dangerous, and in no state to eat or reproduce. Break it" The elf grimaced behind her bandages.

              "I don't think I can kill it. I don't think anything could kill it. I've never seen anything like this! It's amazing. If we can preserve the consciousness of--"

              "We are of the living circle, Lynette. This is not living. This should not be living. It dangerous, and it is in no state to eat or reproduce. To the ecosystem it is worse than nothing. Get. Rid. Of. It." Lynette turned the hand mirror over and set it on the side table. She frowned down at the dragon as it attacked its own gold-tassel tail.

             They both jumped when the bedroom door slammed open. The Halfling, still wearing her singed leathers, stood there. Her dark hair tangled over her pointed face. "Ly.. Lynette... everything, huh, okay?" Lynette opened her mouth to answer, but the dragon made a finger-on-glass screech and sprang off the bed. It flexed as though moving wings it didn't have, hit the floor, and tumbled into the Halfling's legs. She stumbled back.

            The small woman started to laugh, but the dragon straightened itself out and went for her ankle. Lynette sucked in a breath as she sat upright. "Stop!" The dragon froze on two legs, its forefeet lifted. The Halfling caught it before it could drop onto the ground. Soft purple light glowed from its joints and open mouth. "I didn't know that would work," Lynette said.

            "Would it break if I dropped it?" the Halfling asked.
             "I don't think much could break it." The Halfling dropped it down hard enough to dent the floor. It stared up at her from the corner of its eye. She kneeled beside it.

            "There's the aggression I thought I'd get," she said. She sat down next to it, cross-legged. "I figured once you saw my face that you'd focus on me.” She tapped the gilded edge of one ceramic plate. "This is me. That--" she said, pointing at the melted amulet Lynette held, "Wasn't the first time I went cave-diving while you slept. Did you know that? Did you know that I'd already been in your cave, tiptoeing around? Getting my little fingers all over your good gold? 'Good' being relative. I was going to figure out how to get out all the bodies, but I never, I couldn't..."

             “Calla, how is Devk?" The Halfling's mouth slammed shut.

             "Dead."

              Lynette took a slow breath. "I'm sorry," she said. The Halfling got to her feet. She gave the wyrmling a kick that sent it scraping across the wood floor. Then she turned to glare at Lynette, who was half out of the bed.

            "The cleric is seeing to Aldon. He's crisped even more than you, but somehow you didn't kill him with that lightning stunt. But Devk, he's out there. The druids told me to get lost, so's nature could run its course. I don't like your living circle," she said.

             Lynette shrugged, and then hissed in pain. In her distraction, the lavender light faded and the dragon clattered to the floor.

             "I appreciate your help," Lynette said. "I'm... sorry. I am sorry," she said. "It might be the natural cycle, but that doesn't make it nice, or fair. But a dragon and her babies can hurt a lot of people, even just in livestock. You're still justified to feel the way you do."Cabyn drew back her foot again; the dragon and Lynette both closed their eyes.
               "Because...” the Halfling started, and then stopped. Lynette opened her eyes to watch Cabyn lower her leg. The Halfling clenched her fists. “Because Devk wanted you safe. 'Safe' being relative, I guess," Cabyn said. She turned and was gone before Lynette could speak again.

              The dragon was prancing and scurrying across the floor long before Lynette was ready to move from her bed. But burns threatened to turn into bedsores, so she roused herself. She settled on the floor with a small ink kit in front of her. She'd only had to command it to stop twice before it stopped trying to attack her, itself, and its surroundings. Now it chased dust devils and spots of sunlight while she prepared her materials. Lynette grimaced as she bent to her task.

            "Deer... serkl,” she muttered as she wrote. “Livin serkl. I regret that I, Linet Shaydbrow, must end my reelay--time--with the livin serkl. I hav learned much from u all, but reesent dev... el... op... ments... tell me I must find a new path." Lynette cried out as the dragon slid into her cherish-box. Ink spilled ink across the floor. The ceramic dragon twisted over in front of her, half on her legs, and lunged to sink beak into the page Lynette held. The vellum seemed to fail its taste-test, and it skittered away full of complaints. Its bite left behind a jagged, half-circle at the edges from the dragon's golden beak.

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