It was almost five hours past noon when the fat merchant finally emerged back from the inner city’s gates. He was tired, and breathing heavily in the hot summer air as he pushed his way through the crowd of peasants, and their cows. He rested for a mere moment just outside of the second gate, but continued moving as soon as he realised the time, for he knew that there was a very nervous man waiting for him in the small forest located some distance from the crowded city gates. Of course, it was even later when he finally reached a small stream of water and a horse tied by it. The man was waiting a few meters to the left, in the shadow of a dark, evergreen tree.

‘If I had known’, he said in a low, angry voice, ‘that it would take you more than seven hours to go and get back from there, I would have gone to the city myself.’

‘As if you could’, the merchant answered nervously, wiping away the sweat from his wide brow. ‘We both know that if you ever tried such a thing again, you would be arrested at the mere sight of the city gates. And that is why, in the end, you needed my help.’

The man was silent for a moment. Then, he spoke again, his voice hoarse. ‘Did you at least get it?’, he said, for there was nothing else to be said in the face of the truth.

‘Of course’, the merchant sighed with relief. ‘But, you know, you might’ve as well left it in the bloody lizard’s veins. It was that hard to get it.’

‘For you perhaps’, the man chuckled. ‘Because, I am quite sure I haven’t left it in the ‘bloody lizard’s veins’, but in the small, silver bottle that you are to give me now,’ he orders, holding out his hand. The merchant shivers as he takes the bottle out of his pouch, and giving it to the dark man.

‘Why do you need it anyway?’, he asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. ‘The dragon’s blood?’

‘A friend was hurt’, the man said, untying his horse.

                                                                                      ***

The man rode slowly trough the waters of the creak, making sure his horse avoided the hidden stones, and over the tricky patch of land that followed on the other side of it, and it was because of that that the merchant was able to follow the high, powerful horse in his own pace.  

‘You said a friend was hurt’, he asked after they spent almost an hour walking in silence. The path they walked now cleared up long ago, but the man still rode slowly, and the merchant followed some meters behind.

‘Yes’, the man answered quietly, for he did not want to break the silence.
‘I always thought you didn’t have any’, the merchant laughed drily as it got harder and harder to walk, for he wasn’t used to it, and the summer was hot, even in the afternoon and the forest shade.

The man noticed, yet didn’t stop just because of it.  His answer was in return just as dry as the merchant’s laugh. ‘That would be’, he said, looking into the distance, ‘because I have only one, and have made him while I was… away.’ He laughs softly at that, but the merchant frowns. ‘So you were indeed banished’, he says worried. ‘Indeed I was’, the man answers bitterly, with a sour smile on his lips as he remembers. Then, suddenly, he starts humming, muttering under his breath the words of an old song from a place he was once born. ‘..to the darkest place known to this earth, over the border, then far away, to the lands of monsters, where there are no men…’

The merchant shivers again, as he often did in the presence of the dark men, saying quietly to himself: ‘And yet, here you are again’. A small smile appears on his lips after it, for he was, in the end, somewhat amused by this fact. ‘And I am so very sure that the king will soon regret all of those wasted efforts…’, he chuckles quietly under his breath. The man said nothing.  

                                                                                      ***

They walked through the complete darkness. The man showed no signs of fatigue, or a willingness to rest, even though the Sun has sat almost two hours ago. The merchant was far behind them now, for he had fallen again, for the tenth time during the last hour. The man paid no attention to him, or his troubles. The merchant was sure that he could see just right, even in the dark like this, and even if he couldn’t, he could always rely on his horse’s long legs and good instinct to save him from the branches and patches of mud. Unfortunately, the merchant had neither of those. He stumbled and fell down, just to stumble and fall again after he finally got up. Tired more than before and cold, for the temperature had suddenly fell, he was also covered equally with bruises and dirt, and was really wandering why he had ever agree to help this man.  

‘How much longer?’, he asked desperately, still gasping for breath, just as he did before.

‘Not long.’, the man answered. ‘Just over those hills over there.’ The merchant looked up from the ground he was walking, almost tripping on a branch as he did so, and indeed, he saw hills bathing in the moonlight, for they have finally reached the end of the forest.

‘Shouldn’t you hurry?’, he asked, looking at the man’s solemn face. He could not run, not any more, if he ever could, for he was barely standing now, after the hours of walking and wrestling with the traps the man had placed around the single drop of dragon’s blood, which rested in that small, silver bottle. However, the horse was more than rested, and could carry him there in the matter of minutes. But, the man answered: ‘No’, he said, ‘for I have left him in such state that the time I spend getting there makes no difference anymore. He is either still alive, and able to hold on to that life for hours more, or he has already died.’

                                                                                      ***

‘Where is he?’, the merchant asked, confused by what he was seeing. It took them more than a half of an hour to reach the other side of the hills because of his wary legs. As they walked through the silent valley, followed by nothing the chilly wind and the pale Moon, he curiously wandered what kind of person could ever befriend a man such as the one raiding before him. He immediately thought of others like him, those sentenced to the same fate-to live alone forever in those barren lands. But then he had remembered a time of long ago, when the man before him was a soldier, and also hated, much more by those who were like him than by any other. And because of that he changed his mind, thinking that this time situation must be no different. However, after that, his mind failed to provide him with any other man, for who else could live there, in the lands of dragons, but those sentenced to that? Thus, he was left  with nothing as an answer to his question, which was also, for some reason, exactly what he was seeing right now. There was no fire to keep the wounded man warm, or at least camp to protect him from the cold, if the fire could have been built in the morning. He saw only the high hollow grass, and nothing more.

Then the man drew his attention to one particular corner of the hills’ shadow, by saying one simple word: ‘Here.’ And then he held out his hands to touch what the merchant suddenly saw as the tick lines of huge green scales that glimmered in the moonlight as the giant dragon moved.

                                                                                      ***

‘That is your friend?!’, after a long day of trying to catch his breath again, the merchant finally lost it. ‘Yes’, the man answered quietly, paying no attention to the merchant panicked voice or act. He knelt down by the giant’s side, searching carefully with his hand for all the wounds that the soldiers’ arrows left on the soft spots on the dragon’s belly and unprotected wings.

‘That is a dragon!’, the merchant was still yelling. ‘A bloody dragon! Look how big it is! It’s a bloody monster! Monster! A flying lizard! Who’s blood you are still carrying in your pocket! Why in the world did I have to go and risk my head to get a mere drop of it, when there are liters and liters of it sitting right in front of you?!’ The man just laughed at all of this, for he could swear he saw the dragon roll his eyes, despite all the pain and blood loss he has suffered.

‘You had to go’, the then said, his face solemn again, as the hand he had withdrawn from the dragon’s body was tainted by the still hot blood, ‘because I need another dragon’s blood, even if it is just a drop of it, to do what must be done.’

‘What must be done?’, the merchant asked, still confused by the dragon, and angry because he was surprised, with a more than just a bit of cold fear running through his veins, and thus losing the track of his thoughts easily.

‘Yes.’, the man answered again patiently. He stood up, taking the bottle into his hand, and then pressing it again to the dragon’s scales. ‘As I already said, he is my friend. And I need another dragon’s blood, even if it is just a drop of it, to save him.’
‘You are going to save him?’, the merchant blinked, his anger calming down as the confusion went away. ‘How?’, he asked.

‘There is a spell’, the man said, gritting his teeth. ‘You should close your eyes now’, he added just before something from his hand suddenly turned a cold night into bright day.

                                                                                      ***

‘Are you alright now?’, the man asked as the dragon got up, starching his wings, and blocking the sky.

‘Yes.’, the dragon answered. ‘Thank you,…’

‘You’re welcome.’, the man whispered, leaning his head on the giant dragon’s leg. As he sighed with relief, tiredness finally washed over him. Suddenly, he could barely stand. The dragon lowered his head, nuzzling the man’s back with a nose bigger then himself. While he did that he also took a closer look at the still dumbfounded merchant.

’And say thank you to your panicked friend over there, if he has calmed down enough to understand something as simple as the words of thanks’, the dragon said in order to make the man move again.

It worked. ’He says thank you’, the man once again turned towards the merchant, who looked at him blankly for a second, before he bursted into laughter. ’Are you serious?’, he somehow managed to say between the laughs. ’Yes.’, the man answered honestly while raising his brow. ’Quite serious, actually.’

The merchant stopped laughing. ’Then, you are very welcomed.’, he said, bowing his head to ’the giant lizard.’ This time  the dragon laughed, and his laughter shook the hills.

’Here.’, the man said, giving him the reins of his horse. ’Your payment, as I promised.’ The merchant took in his hand what once used to be the fastest way to get from one corner of the land to another, and then continued to watch solemnly as the man climbed onto the dragon’s back. As he watched the dragon fly, there were two thoughts colliding in his head.

’No wonder I couldn’t think of that.’, he said, amused, as he thought to himself: ’Oh, yes, the king will regret every last steep he has ever made.’

The room was dark, almost all of the high windows closed, and covered with thick velvet curtains. Only one window remained opened and on it sat a man, bathing in the golden rising Sun. ‘I know that there is something on your mind, William’, he said, his voice as heavy as the still, silent air in the vast, empty room. ‘It is fairly obvious, so will you please speak up already? Your demur is irritating me.’ However, that didn’t last for long. By the end of the very next sentence, it had already reached a harsh, threatening tone. The High Duke coughed, as if to clear his throat, feeling uncomfortable. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was only after a few minutes of all kinds of rustling noises coming from his side of the room, that he finally dared voice it. ‘One may say that, perhaps, this time you have done too much, Araeal.’, was what he said.
Arael laughed, his harsh voice echoing throughout the empty halls. ‘Nonsense.’, he said, with a sour smile on his lips. ‘It is not.’, the Duke countered. ‘Soon the king will have enough of you.’
‘How so?’, he answered with a smug, scornful look on his face. ‘You know more than well, William, that without me  that old fool could barely sit on his throne, let alone rule. Without me, he would be babbling nonsense like a child, suffering in pain from his many old wounds and more importantly, from his old age. If it were not for me, there would be no world for him for a long time now.’
His voice was soft, yet each word he said was sharper than any knife’s edge, sending shiver after shiver down the William’s spine, for he was angry. And when William tried to awkwardly budge somewhat to his right in order to avoid the piercing gaze, he laughed again, relaxing. ‘Thus, William,’, he said, looking once more through the window and down the street, towards the sea, ‘I can do whatever I want, and no consequences will ever befall me.’
This time, the Duke frowned. ‘You are too sure of yourself, Arael.’, he said. ’The king will eventually find another way.’ And this time, Areal didn’t laugh. He just smiled, sadly, softly. ‘Ah, but that is where the trick lies, William. There is no other way.’

                                                                                      ***

‘I already know what you are going to say, Advin, so you might as well save your breath. You are not as young as you used to be.’, the king quietly laughed at his own joke, while his advisor stared blankly. He was unmoved, and most certainly not amused.
‘Kill the boy.’, the king continued speaking almost for himself after he put his old bones to rest on his throne. ‘That’s what you always say. Or ‘Get rid of the boy’ if you are not in such a sour mood. No matter how many times I refuse to, you always come back with the same things in your head. ‘Kill the boy, kill the boy. Get rid of the boy, get rid of the boy…’ So, for the last time now, Advin,’, king’s tone suddenly grew more serious, ‘that will not happen any time soon. I don’t care how many times he angers me. I do not care how many times you will plead for the release of his presence. He will never be free, for the moment he is free, I will also die.’
‘Still, Your Majesty, there  must be a way to do without him. He is.. Unbearable.’, the advisor spoke humbly, lowering his head before the king. ‘Yes, there is. Many, in fact.’, the king laughed. ‘For you at least.’ Adviser said nothing.
‘You would just need to find me an heir, once I have died, an heir to wear my crown and sit on my throne and listen to your every suggestion, big or small. That’s all you would have to do, once you find a way to do away with that boy, of course.’, he laughed again. ‘And trust me, Advin, that is not going to happen. At least not any time soon.’

                                                                                      ***

‘What is it again?’, Arael asked, sighing, and turning his head down, in the William’s general direction.
‘There is something I don’t understand.’, the boy answered immediately.
‘And what would that be?’, Arael laughed, with a somewhat sarcastically  amusement coloring his deep voice.
For almost six months after he had angered the king during the ambassador reception, Arael wasn’t anywhere near court’s good favour. He wasn’t able to take a steep outside the castle wing he inhabited without being glared at by the guards or talked about, behind his back,  among the ladies. He didn’t care much for it, except for the fact that his refusal to stay alone in his room and repent made them all so much angrier. So he mingled among them, walked the castle grounds by himself, or visited both the balls and the castle halls. He stopped the moment he was invited, the second he was accepted as the natural state of things, but by then William got used to him. And thus, a boy who was already a High Duke felt a bit more relaxed about him now.
‘You, Advin, and even His Majesty himself all say that you, and you alone, are what’s keeping the king alive.’, William continued.
‘Yes. And I’ve been doing it for the last thirty years or so. What exactly do you not understand there?’, Arael looked down on him from the tree again. He was sitting pretty high, on the strongest branch he could find enjoying the breeze. He stopped coming to the gardens once it became apparent that no one was bothered by it anymore, but today was different. Sometimes the Sun from the window was not enough.
‘If you are what’s keeping him alive, then why do you use every chance you can get to try and make him angry?’, William looked up towards him, and for a moment he met his eyes, and piercing, mocking, blue gaze.
‘That would be because I hate him.’, Arael answered with a solemn look on his face, but there was no emotions to be felt in his voice. It was bare and cold.
‘Then why do you bother keeping him alive?’, that was the part he could not understand.
‘Because I made a deal with him a long time ago.’, Arael sighed, passing his fingers through his hair, and returning to a position he was previously sitting in, with his back against the warm tree.
‘A deal? With someone you hate? Why?’
Arael sighed again, trying hard not to lose himself to the thoughts of the past. ‘Because I didn’t hate him back then, obviously.’, he scoffed at William’s words. ‘Actually, for a moment, I held him in my favour…’, there was a moment of heavy silence, and then, Arael spoke again.
‘Honestly, boy.’, he reached for a small fruit above his head and suddenly dropped it down on William’s head. ‘You should try using your head a bit more.’
‘I am not a boy.’, William tried protesting with no avail. ‘You are nineteen.’, Arael said dismissively. ‘And for me, anything below a hundred is still just a hatchling.’
‘A hatchling?’, William asked with a smirk.
‘Yes. A hatchling.’
                                                                                      ***

‘To prolong one’s life?’, she asked in a hushed, eerie voice, fiddling with her long grey hair as she walked around the fire.
‘Yes.’, he answered, following her with his eyes. ‘For thirty years now both the king and that boy have claimed so, and so have I. In front of the dukes and knights that were told this… secret… I have claimed so, for my king also claimed so. But now, I want a rightful answer: is it true?’
‘No plant can do such a thing.’, she said, throwing a little petal which was stuck in her hair to the flame. ‘Nor any animal’s flesh and bone. No earth and no stone either.’, then, she stopped. Ever since he came, almost an hour ago, she walked around that fire, walked as if she was dancing, as if it was more important than anything in the world. And she never stopped, not for once, not even to look him in the eye. Until now.
‘There is only one thing in this world that can do such a thing. To prolong one’s life, one must earn a dragon’s favour.’

                                                                                      ***

King’s back was hurting. It wasn’t the first time. He used to feel it every now and then after sitting for too long, or in the morning, when he got up. But now, for almost three or four days, his back was hurting, constantly. He decided to take a walk down the side east corridor.
‘Are you, perhaps, growing old?’, he asked. The room was still the same as it was almost thirty years ago, vast, empty, darkened and cold.
‘I can never grow old, Amaneus.’, he sat at the far eastern window, yearning for the light of a disappearing Sun he could not reach. And he was also the same.
‘Yes, I seem to have noticed that.’, the king said. ‘And so would the most of the court too if you have dared pay it any more visit.’
‘I am not a dog, Amaneus, or have I every agreed to live here.’, he said scornfully. ‘How would you explain mine, or yours, never changing appearance, if it would ever come to that that you have to, is really none of my concern.’
‘You are the same as ever.’, the king said bitterly.
‘Of course I am.’, Arael laughed harshly, turning his head over his shoulder and towards the king. ‘And I will forever be.’
The king frowned. ‘My back is hurting. Has been hurting all day now. Yesterday too.’
‘And why are you telling me about this?’, Areal said, raising his eyebrow. ‘I only promised to keep you alive, Amaneus. I never said anything about your… aching back.’, he turned around, his voice as cold as ice. ‘You earned once the dragon’s favour, Amaneus, and that’s what kept you alive so far. If you wanted something done about your aching parts, you should have worked harder to keep it.’

                                                                                      ***

‘For how long?’, he asked, staring into the fire. ‘For how long can he keep him alive?!’
‘Forever.’, she laughs at his anger.  ‘For as long as the dragon shall live, the bound is strong, and the dragon is one creature that shall never die.’
‘So I cannot kill him?’, he asks, bitterly.
‘You can.’, she nodes her head. ‘But it is very hard…’, suddenly, she stops again. ‘In fact, didn’t your king himself kill a few by his hand? Yes, yes he did… Some thirty years ago I believe…’

                                                                                      ***

‘My brother, my father, my mother. Slaughtered, all right in front of my eyes. All thanks to the one immortal life I gave… to the man who knew nothing more the how to lie.’

                                                                                      ***

‘So he earns his favour, then slaughters his kind? How…’, he cannot understand.
And she shrugs her shoulders. ‘Once you have earned your immortal life, there is not a law in this world that says that you have to keep your dragon’s favour… And the dragon's scales shine like gold...
Yet, despite that, most still tend to, for there lies a weakness.’

                                                                                      ***

‘Lie to me, and to his people. Lie all his life, his long, long, long, and much prolonged, life. You should have died from that wound! You should have died, Amaneus. And yet you dare complain about your aching back?!’
And there it comes, the dragon’s flame.

                                                                                      ***

‘What weakness?!’, he asks, eagerly. ’Hush.’, she barks. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not one you can exploit.’, she scoffs, then continues talking. ‘But I shall tell you never the less. The weakness is that if somebody else were to win again the wounded dragon’s broken favour, the previous bond would be… gone.’

                                                                                      ***

The east wing was on fire. Throughout the empty halls the fire spread with each of his steeps. His touch brought many silent death, in pain, to every picture, table, and chair he could find, and, of course, in the end, the curtains. And he bathed in the night as if it was the Sun.
But the King was still alive.

                                                                                      ***

The healer left the room with more question than he had answers when he first came in. His flesh was burned, and his body a bloody mess, and yet, and yet, the King was still alive.
‘Alive until we can find a dragon.’, Advin muttered to himself, over the king’s deathbed, for even though he knew he could never earn the dragon’s favore, he also knew someone who already had.

                                                                                      ***

‘How?’, he asked before he left. ‘How what?’, she answers, innocently. ‘How do you earn a dragon’s favour?’ She looks at him as if she was confused. ‘How do you earn any man’s favour?’, was her only answer.

                                                                                      ***

The dragon sat in the pail of ash. His face was clean, not a mark of the fire on him, except for the clothes. Ripped apart and both burned and torn, it was almost completely gone. But underneath it shone a golden scale. One after another, they appeared, summoned by the rays of the morning Sun.
‘I didn’t expect him to find you so soon.’, he said, standing up. ‘On the other hand, I also never expected he would find a way. And yet, here we are.’ Young Duke remained silent.
Arael laughed. ‘Did he even tell you everything?  No, a better question: did he tell you anything?’, he turns around towards the boy, a mere nineteen years old hatchling. ‘So, what is it this time, William? What is it that you want? And are you going to voice it?’ There are more scales than inches of skin now. He is moments away from tuning into a complete dragon.
Still, he gets nothing but silence. And then, when the Sun has reached its morning peak… ‘A new deal, right? You need a new wish in order to break an old one.’
‘Yes.’, the dragon nods its giant head. ‘But, can you voice it, William? Can you speak your mind… Now?’, and he spreads its wings far, far, away, roaring so laud, his head reaching for the sky.
‘Have I earned the dragon’s favour?’, William simply asks in return.
‘Yes.’, the dragon tilts its head. ‘For now. But, can you keep it?’
‘I’ll try.’, he laughs, nervously. ‘So I just have to say it? My wish?’
‘No. You have to voice it.’
‘Then I wish to be king.’