Those of you playing along at home have probably figured out by now that it wasn't really a dragon that Mark and I had to go meet. It was something dragonlike in the key qualities (immeasurably magickally powerful, physically potent enough to consider us insects, older than dirt and smarter than a supercomputer), but I'd be an idiot to say what it actually was. Too easy to connect the dots.
That said, don't mistake me for an instant: Dragons are real. The qualities of power, nature and behavior that I am going to ascribe to this fictional individual are completely true of those real world giant lizards out there. Hand to gods.
When I lie in my personal stories about what I faced to keep things muddled, I'm never muddling the nature of the actual named beasties. That would defeat the point.
So, we went to meet the dragon.
The dragon, like most supernatural nigh-on-to-gods (and gods, for that matter) in big cities, has an office building he likes to meet in. Not the dank and secluded caves of some of the more traditional beasties, but perfect for any monster who can wear human skin and smile pleasantly.
He also has a secretary who I swear must be some sort of living statue. It's not that she's shown any supernatural abilities, or even looks strange, she is just so emotionless she must be a robot. Or a sociopath, I suppose. I can't stand sociopaths. All the malevolence of monsters, with all the frailty of humans.
Sad, really.
We were taken up to the dragon by elevator. An elevator operated manually by some unseen creatures to make sure our wizard didn't fuck it up, the way Wizard's do. Apparently magick and science hate each other so much that magic fries any circuits it can get in to. The number of phones that have spontaneously been burnt out in Mark's presence has to rival the population of most African nations.
The elevator let us out in an enormous office. No hallway, no doors, just one big office with fancy carpet that could probably have saved a human from a seven story drop it was so plush. The dragon wasn't facing us. His son, the twerp that Mark had pissed off, was standing there, glaring at us, but all we could see of the big old monster was the back of a tall-ass leather chair behind a desk that probably cost more cash than I could get by selling every house I've ever lived in to a gullible foreigner who hadn't worked out the exchange rate and owed me a favor.
The chair swiveled, and my hackles and I decided to take a big step away from the wizard in case he was to be incinerated on the spot.
What we saw in the chair was a dragon. It looked human, but that couldn't really hide it. Not fully. You could smell the power in the room. At least, I could; I've been told humans tend to feel it where their hairs meet their skin instead, but it's the same phenomenon. It sat there in the body of a calm, collected white-male-human skin, in a clean and pressed white-shirt in a white-collar job in an ivory-white tower. The modern king in a modern tower. He didn't smile. That was a relief. I've seen Kur smile, and even in human skin it's all serpentine aggression.
Here we come to the rub of things:
Dragons don't understand power. They can't, because they've only ever had one side of it. Sure, maybe a young dragon gets bullied around by bigger dragons, but any dragon who survives to adulthood bullied back, and bullied either harder or smarter. They don't have to claw their way to the top on a mound of corpses, because the sky is only a flap of the wings away, and that doesn't even limit them. They can step into the realms beyond, the places where they're born, and there's just about nothing that can stop them. Humans frequently worship them as gods, because they are as powerful as gods. They are mighty, they are massive, and they are unrestrained. They have never known what it is to have something more powerful bearing down on you. A dragon does not fear you, cannot fear you, because it is a dragon, and always has been.
Smart dragons understand that they are not invulnerable. You can crush ants all day long, but a swarm can still kill you. But, being vulnerable is not the same as being subservient. Dragons demand obedience because they wield power, because they are power. They cannot be otherwise.
That's why they can't understand insolence, or disobedience, or resentment. A dragon has never had to stand silent and wait to be addressed for fear of having its flesh seared from bone. A dragon is the one doing the searing.
They may be vastly intelligent, but there is no way for them to learn humility or to understand what it means to have power over another. The concepts are of no use to a ten ton reptile.
This makes them terrifying.
Anyone who actually understands power recognizes the nature of a two way street, the possibility of losing power, the hatred they will breed in others. Dragons just don't grok all that. They wield power without concern for consequence, without need for concern. They have never found their limits, and they probably never will. They act because they are amused, or bored, or hungry. Power is a trinket to them, not the flesh and blood that it is to the rest of us.
This makes dragons unpredictable and very, very hard to manipulate. You can stroke their egos, but chances are the dragon's concern is at absolute zero, the point at which all fucks freeze and shatter apart. You can offer them something they want, a service or gift, and their greed may find that enough (dragons are, invariably, greedy), but they might also decide they don't need you to get what they want and kill you anyways. or use magick to rip the information you have out of your mind. There are no rules to use to bargain with them.
So, when a creature that cannot understand defiance is flipped off by an overly defiant, insolent, and frankly just plain rude pyromaniac wizard, all you can do is step back and flinch.
Kur didn't disintegrate the wizard.
Like I said, unpredictable.
And, while they may not understand power, dragons do understand value, its the only thing they really care about. A wizard, one who belongs to the White Council no less, is a very, very valuable commodity. One worth some investment, perhaps even an investment of bruised pride.
That said, it was a bitch and a half talking Kur into any real understanding. Value is one thing, use another. A valuable thing is of no use if you can't command it. Eventually a talked Kur into marking the wizard in such a way that he could peer into the wizards mind, exert influence over him. The wizard had to drink Kur's blood. Very vampiric, but it seemed to change him. His power, his nature... but not his attitude.
Since I opened my big mouth to try and save the miserable little speller, it fell to me to be his guardian as well. Not as an insult to me, but simply because I could be of use that way. Again, Kur isn't even capable of understanding the frustration and resent such an asinine assignment brings with it.
We left the office alive and still breathing because I, and Hank, showed proper deference. Mark was an asshole, but apparently we were deferential enough for him as well.
In summation:
Dragons are power. Tread carefully around them, and never assume they actually understand what the relationships of power truly are. They have enormous blindspots in these things, but those should not be seen as weaknesses, just more reasons to kill you.
Be respectful, show deference, and bargain because your life probably depends on it, and your freedom certainly does.
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