The air grows no warmer as the rippling light draws near but, as it does, it swells ever wider, the shifting sparkles scattered across a spreading space that fills all my vision and can only represent a vast cavern, great as a hall of men upon earth, or even the vaults of a cathedral and this guess is confirmed for, as I move closer still, I begin to hear the echo of my feet on the stone, the sound caught and reflected in the unseen roof high above. And then it comes to me what I am seeing, not fire, but the earth flame, the arm gleed, the hand ember, the dance of light over the surface of polished metal. As far as the eye can see before me stretches a carpet of coins, of crowns, neck bands, arm and finger rings, spilled in careless profusion, the curved basins of cups and the peaked roofs of reliquaries, mail and helms and weapons burnished bright. Ropes of pearls hang from every available surface, like chains of ice mantling a long-lost winterscape, and everywhere the hues too rich for mortal eyes of enamels and gems, scintillating like the sun through the rose window of a nave, deep apple red, warm apricot, the clean pale green of pears and the deep midnight blue of plum skin, crusted across the surfaces of many of the metal artifacts or scattered indiscriminately on the ground like the stones and cores of the very fruits they resemble.
Once the sight of all these riches would have overwhelmed me with greed as I thought of the reputation and the pleasures I could buy with them. But now, what would be the purpose? Lost and forgotten in the deep places, I cannot use them to go on vacation, to eat at fine restaurants, or that which I cherished most, to go to the gym and practice my battle craft. Indeed it has now been so long since I was able to do these things that I have forgotten what it feels like to want them, have deliberately forgotten, not dared to let myself want them lest I be unmanned by the despair of remembering they are almost certainly forever beyond me. I suppose I could always use the wealth to buy more extravagant clothes but the thrill even of that has all but faded. After all, there is no one else to see and admire them and, even if there were, I am starting to be feel doubts as to how much such things actually express the self I want to be.
Instead, I feel an overwhelming sadness as I always have at the sight of beauty beyond the power of my words to fully express. But now it is also a grief for these exquisitely made things, each unique and wrought by hands, a phenomena that grows increasingly difficult to find, let alone afford, meant for the human and communal activities of feast and battle and worship, all long ago stripped of their value and now at least as rare as the physical examples of craft before me. With sorrowful reverence, I approach the edge of the gold-field and sink to one knee, reaching out hesitantly to trace my fingers along the twisting links of a wrought girdle, narrow tendrils of gold and silver twining about one another, sometimes shaping themselves into the likenesses of fierce wolves and eagles with emerald eyes.
Only to pull back just as my fingers are about to graze its surface as I catch the sudden quiver of motion in the cavern beyond, so faint at first that I think my eyes have been fooling me. I remain frozen with hand outstretched. My heart pounds as I scan the shadowed expanse in front of me, waiting and dreading to see it again. There, there it is again in the dim distance, a cold slithering sound and a winking like flying sparks as the side of one of the great mounds of treasure collapses and goes sliding. My held breath rushes out in a flood of relief. It was only that, the upsetting of a pile of unbalanced inanimate objects. Only to have that same breath choke on itself once again at the sight of of an ominous heaving at the base of the half-fallen hill of riches, like breath itself or like the moonlit tide rolling onto the shore at night. And then it gets worse for it is plain that the shore under consideration lies in my direction, that it is not just rolling but rolling towards me. At first it moves under the surface, sending the treasure rippling above it like a metal wave as it surges nearer. Then it burrows up from below, breaking through the layers of riches, sending coins and gems flying like spray and dazzling my eyes for an instant.
When I can see again, the sight is not encouraging. Over the gleaming gold-fire a ribbon of darkness comes weaving, sinuous and sinister and I freeze in dread as I recall the other names for the precious metal, snake path, serpent ground, wyrm way. Near it twists and nearer, basalt dark with a faint reddish tinge like dried blood. And then, when it is only a few feet from me, it begins to flow upwards, like a perverse waterfall, defying the laws of nature. But, swiftly, its upper end stoops again, far too solid for water and against the shifting of the treasure lights beyond I can make out the silhouette of a head, thick and wedge-shaped but with a long snout, part tiger, part crocodile, a shape I would know anywhere. Great pits of nostrils flare on the tip, taking their measure of me through my scent and then the eyes open, long oblongs of putrid yellow tinged with toxic-waste green, glowing faintly with an arcane bio-hazard luminescence, slashed through the center with pupils of pure black, slitted like a serpent's. My heart runs like a rabbit with the knowledge of what looms before me, what will now be expected of me. But so it has many times in the gym, so it did during each and every one of my voyages, and none of that ever made the slightest difference to the complete moral and often physical inability to turn back
With a great effort of will, I find my voice, and roust it forth from the tiny bolt hole in the back of my mind where it has been hiding, in preparation to once again do what must be done. "Once, now long ago, you may have been intended for the snake fight section of my dissertation," I say grimly, sliding my sword from its scabbard, as I stride forward. "But I have no idea why I am here now." The beast laughs as the experts say dragons do, opening its jaws to also bare its blades. But it has far more, two long wicked spines, the equivalent of the blade in my hand, each on the upper and lower jaw, surrounding by a cluster of shorter saxes. For a second, I think it's about to tell me its armor is like ten-fold shields. But it doesn't. Doesn't need to. I can see that well enough with one glance at the matte black, rust tinged scales, each at least as long as my forearm. It has no wings or claws but could doubtless brain me with its tail if it wished. I will have to watch out for that. The long heavy body goes trailing away into the shifting shadows and gleaming gold-lights of the vast horde and I have no way of knowing where it ends, where that fatal tail tip is hiding, ready to lash out at me when I least expect it.
"You cannot evade destiny," the wyrm hisses, its voice sibilant, not harsh and grating, as its tongue, a ropy length of muscle, pink-green like rotting meat, coils from behind its sword fangs. "From the moment you took up that quest, it was foredoomed that you and I should meet. And the combat must still be fought, even if it now signifies nothing." Its ghastly grin deepens. "You made an error in your bibliography...in the entry for PantsFish." Black venom drools from between its teeth and down over its jaws, to drip smoking onto the treasure below, its caustic odor foul upon the air, making my throat constrict even from several paces away. So, no fire then, but its breath is still deadly none the less. "Tell me who you are," the beasts prompts pleasantly, "as an honorable challenger should."
"I hardly think that necessary," I reply shortly, shifting position slightly, still keeping my guard up. "If you've been involved with my thesis, especially if you posses even a sliver of that vaunted dragon cunning that would enable you to read between the lines, you already know far too much about me. But if you insist on playing this game, I am knowledgeable in the proper way to speak to dragons, so here you go. I am the modern Havisham, waiting in my spun steel finery for the day that will never come. I am the metal front-man, the Byronic poet, the crusader who cries 'Dei volunt.' I am the voice from the crowd that declares the emperor is naked, though I am old and wise enough to know the implications and cost of doing so. I am the friend of ravens, the stone changer, the egg breaker. And I am the wodbora."
The wyrm rears itself up higher, the spangles of light refracting from the gold playing over its scales. "Oh well done," it cries, almost eager in its condescension. "I've not encountered so cunning a riddle maker in many an age. These days, almost every PhD candidate I am assigned to challenge just wants to talk about deconstruction or some equally obtuse theory, which I find far too esoteric even for so wise an ancient a beast as myself. Even the offer of a good, old fashioned riddle contests gets me saddled with insults about how I am being 'reductionist' and 'glorifying the gas peddle.' The nerve of it." The coils hiss menacingly over the spreading mountain of coins, as it shifts its vast bulk like a snake preparing itself to strike. "Are they really too stupid to see that I am not a hot dragon? Why on earth would I want to glorify gas?"
"You have my sympathies," I answer, my voice devoid of patience. "You just told me the story of my own life and, even if you do feel the lack as much as you say, an entirely plausible possibility, I know you are still saying it in the hope putting me off my guard. But I'm beyond tired of playing games, something one with as much academic experience as you should well be able to appreciate. So stand aside...or else."
"You would threaten me?" the beast cries, its slitted eyes like amber oil widening in shock. "I slay where I wish. I shred theses, despoil dissertations. I ravish in an instant academic reputations built over a lifetime of soulless struggle. I gut hopes and dreams and leave them mangled and bleeding on the defense room floor. What could you possibly raise against me that would inspire in me the smallest scrap of fear?"
"Your name, PiscisBracae" I reply defiantly and the dragon hisses in pained rage, as if the words were a nail across a cosmic blackboard, flicking its overripe meat slab of a tongue at me like a whip. "Come now," I say with grim amusement, turning its sardonic tone back upon it. "I know you have to spend most of your time dealing with modern PhD candidates but did your really think I would have allowed my vision to become so myopically narrowed as all that, that I would miss it when you yourself slipped it into your speech to taunt me. So I say again, stand aside, PantsFish."
Thrashing its bulk so that the treasure around it heaves and plunges in storm tossed foment the beast draws itself up impossibly higher, towering over me. "Never." Again the caustic drool spills from its jaws. "You may have robbed me of the advantage of my True Name but I still have weapons enough." It comes diving towards me, blade lined mouth gaping, the wind of its foul breath making me dizzy, as it shakes the floor of the cave with its mighty roar. "Defend your thesis."
©Amanda RR Hamlin 2026
