Chapter Two: The Seeker Of Wisdom
"Are you the Dragon of Enlightenment?"
I looked up from gnawing on a rather tasty young lamb I had discovered roaming about the ledge next to the entrance of my lair. Not the brightest animal in the neighborhood.
There was a man standing there at the cave entrance, looking from me to the bloody sheep carcass and back again. The man had no armor, and was evidently not a knight.
That didn't really surprise me though; knights who come to visit the Dragon of Enlightenment are few and far between. Enlightenment is not high on the list of knightly ideals, since it doesn't score very well with the princesses and other damsels in distress who think that the true tests of manhood are all related to a man's ability to bludgeon creatures with blunt objects, or carve them up with sharp ones. Personally, I think the world would be a vastly different place if the princesses measured desirability in terms of IQ points, rather than bicep inches. Different, I said. Not necessarily better. Just different.
You see now why they call me the Dragon of Enlightenment, yes? Those wise and perceptive thoughts all went through my mind in the short amount of time it took to look the man over and say--while drooling lamb's blood from the corner of my wide, toothy maw--"Who are you?"
The little man, dressed in the deep green robe of a mage, a seeker, coughed gently and declared, "I am a seeker of wisdom." His voice squeaked with nervous trembling, but his words were clear. It was a good answer--more enlightened than the tediously factual "I am Ralph McDonald," that some idiot gave me last week.
Like I cared what his name was.
He then proceeded to ask me his question. "And who are you?"
I hesitated only long enough to spit the rest of the lamb onto the ground, then said, "I am the destroyer of seekers of wisdom."
Of course, that caused his knees to knock together even more, but I am not the Dragon of Fear, so I didn't take advantage of his terror.
"Why have you interrupted my breakfast?" It was a trick question, naturally. The obvious answers--"to ask you questions" or "to fight you"--were far too easy, too obvious to be considered enlightened, especially since they completely avoided answering the implied question--why now instead of some other time of day?
But this little mage was too quick, too perceptive. "I have chosen breakfast time for two reasons," he said--somewhat haughtily for a person who could barely keep his voice from squeaking. "First, because I have been up all night meditating, and wish to try out my meditations on you before I lose them in the darkness of slumber."
"Ah." I said. "You spent the whole night in preparation. Truly I am doomed." I hoped he caught the sarcasm, but you never could tell with these little ones. "And the other reason?"
"Dragons eat but once per day. Since you have been eating, all the blood is now rushing to your stomach to help aid in digestion. You are stupider now than you will ever be through the rest of the day."
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"Ah. I see. A truly enlightened man gains his success by taking unfair advantage of his adversary, yes?"
The poor man moved his mouth helplessly for a couple moments, trying to think how to answer my question. Just as the perspiration was starting to bead up and stand out on his forehead, his eyes brightened and he said, his voice flooded with relief, "Hey! It's not your turn to ask a question."
I bowed graciously and awaited his next question.
He looked me squarely in the eye and said, "A man has a vast fortune, greater than the treasures of a hundred kingdoms. He has a lovely wife, more gracious than the queens of a thousand lands, and a daughter more beautiful and loving than all the princesses of all the domains of the world.
"What would be the greatest tragedy of his life? To lose his wealth, his wife, or his daughter?"
I yawned. If the poor fellow knew how many times I had answered this particular question, he would be quite embarrassed. I paused a moment to let him think I was pondering; after all, I did not want him to die of embarrassment. "The greatest tragedy of his life has already befallen him," I said. "The greatest tragedy of his life is to have the treasures of a hundred kingdoms, for he has most certainly sacrificed the virtues of integrity and compassion along the way, and even if he has not, he can no longer enjoy either the pleasure of his wife or the company of his daughter, or the sleep of his comfortable bed, or the food of his sumptuous table because of the great fear in his heart that someone without integrity or compassion will steal from him these magnificent treasures. Next to the ulcers that eat away at his stomach, these treasures can buy him nothing."
On we went from there, battling throughout the morning, until the sun was high in the sky. I will not tell you the words of our battle, for it is not right that you should gain the wisdom of the ages without putting your life at risk. Of course, the one about the king and his riches, I did give you that one; you can think of that as a freebie. No more, though.
As I was saying, we battled on into the noonday heat. I think the lack of sleep, combined with lack of food, was really getting to the poor fellow. Me, I had slept all night, plus--as was previously mentioned--I had a very delightful breakfast of cute little wooly lamb. I was in top form.
The question that finally got him had something to do with a man standing at a fork in a road, facing two men, one of whom always spoke the truth, while the other always told lies. Or something like that. He puzzled over that little conundrum for nearly half an hour, muttering to himself and sweating like an antelope. I tried to understand what he was saying, but honestly I think he was passing in and out of a delirium brought on by heat exhaustion and exacerbated by the aforementioned lack of sleep and food.
Finally, he looked up at me with the same sort of helpless gaze the recently devoured sheep had given me, and then, with a quick yelp and a small puff of smoke, he turned into a toad.
Personally, I thought this was a vast improvement, as toads are--generally speaking--some of the more enlightened creatures on earth. Plus, they never try to kill me with their pseudo-intellectual babbling.
Chapter Three: The Knights Of Westerbluff
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