PENDARA’S STORY

As Told to Leonard

My mission is fulfilled. Now I, Pendara, can tell my story in the cave of memories where it will last forever. My hatchling friend Leonard, who helped me with my mission and who I rescued from his hatchers, is watching my flaming words and listening to my mindful heart so that he can record the story in his way, a way I do not understand. He is holding a thin stick in his claw and moving it on a thin stone so that it makes marks that mean nothing to me. Leonard says these marks help his people remember the story. I do not see how that can be. I find it much easier to remember a story by breathing it out with flames that form pictures of my memories and then preserve them. When we gordarans breathe our stories in caves of memories, the flames shaped by these stories abide so that any gordaran may read any story that flickers in this cave.

The way humans such as Leonard see and understand the world is so very different than the way we gordarans see and understand it that we cannot agree on how to tell my story to his fellow-creatures. For example, Leonard objects to my referring to his claws. I don’t understand what he thinks his claws are, but I can see they are different than mine. His claws are much softer than mine and are not sharp at all. He can’t even tear his food apart with them and I have to do it for him. But I think my word is close enough and it will have to do. It is the same way with many things in my story. If the story is not told in the way I see and understand it, then it is not worth telling. I will concede on one thing from now on, however. Leonard prefers that I call humans such as he humans, as that is what they call themselves. In return he is learning to call us gordarans and not the horrible word used in his own language.

I was hatched as a layer-of-eggs. But let it be known that among gordarans, the layers-of-eggs can breathe fire better than the non-layers-of-eggs. We can also fight as well as they, and they know it. It must be said, however, that we no longer fight for the purpose of hurting one another, but we fight only for sport. If anyone is hurt in a fight, the winner has to heal the loser.

 I was raised in the Forest of Belledur outside the city of Neshbin. In the Forest of Belledur, some trees grow up from the ground and some grow down from the roof. Leonard thinks that our trees are not trees and they do not make a forest. What I say in return is that the weak trees in the forests of the mammoth cave he comes from do not make a forest. When I put it that way, Leonard is willing to allow me to call Belledur a forest with trees in it. This is how difficult it is to explain the way we gordarans see the world to humans such as Leonard. The roof of Leonard’s cave is so much higher than the roof of my cave that Leonard does not even think it is a roof, and he does not think he was living in a cave before he came to live with us. As far as we gordarans are concerned, a roof of a cave is a roof of a cave, no matter how high the roof is.

When I was still a hatchling, my friends and I spent many happy instants flying up among the trees hanging down from the roof. We romped in the air and breathed patterns of light on the trees that were a sight to behold. We also swam in the rivers and lakes that abound in our forest and our cities. We respect these rivers and lakes because tasty fish swim there. We also catch bats who fly about in the forest. They are as tasty as fish. In the cities there are streets and caves where each hatching brood has a home.

Leonard is reminding me that I have not explained what a gordaran is. I will stop my story long enough to explain. A gordaran is a creature with a brilliant mind who thinks that stories and songs are important. These stories and songs flame with our many instants of struggles to become good. If we forget our stories, we fear we may have to live through our instants of struggles all over again. We do not want that to happen. Now Leonard is telling me that some humans who read the marks he is making with his stick may still be confused by my explanation because some humans live under the delusion that they are the only creatures in the world who think and dream. So, I will add that we gordarans have scales all over our bodies, wings to fly with, and we can breathe fire that carries pictures of what is in our hearts. Some gordarans have green scales, some have golden scales, and some have scales of both colors. My scales happen to be both green and yellow, the most superior kind. Of course, all gordarans believe that their scale colors are superior to all others. Unlike humans, we solve the problem of superiority by each believing in our own superiority and allowing others to do the same. We extend this courtesy to humans. We wish they would do the same to us.

Now Leonard is getting impatient for me to tell my story. He says it is difficult to preserve my thoughts in his fashion and does not want to make any more marks with the stick in his claws than he has to. If only he could learn to breathe his words into pictures with the fire of his breath the way we gordarans do! But these poor humans have no fire to breathe. What a pity! Leonard is still a hatchling, and he is impatient for me to get on with my story. So I will do that.

My story begins with the instant when Theravin, my non-layer-of-eggs companion, and I explored our cave further from our lair than we were supposed to. We knew there was a cave beyond our own greater cave and we had even heard that some humans had claimed it for their own. But the stories preserved in our caves of memories concerning humans are so dark that we are all afraid to come near that world. Everybody, that is, except for Theravin and me. We should have known better. It would have saved Theravin’s life and saved me the heartbreak I will suffer all the instants remaining in my life. But such fear would also have saved us from experiences beyond imagining. I cannot imagine my life without them. You see, although many gordarans still say we should have been content with the joys of the life we already had, Theravin and I believed we could return to these joys with new stories and songs, and so we did. But Theravin enjoys them only in the beating of his dead heart.

The dark stories gave us fair warning. They tell of humans who wore false scales and attacked us with long, sharp sticks. To this day, we do not know why they fought us in this manner. It is true that during our own Instants of Struggle, there were gordarans who stole food from humans. But these same gordarans stole food from their own kind as well, and we never killed them with sharp sticks. We simply cornered them in our cave and kept them there long enough for them to know how it feels to miss a meal. In any case, what a few gordarans may have stolen from humans was nothing compared to what humans stole from us! There were many instants when humans stole sacred meditation scales from our caves. These are not scales that we gordarans wear; they are scales put into the earth and stone of our caves by the All-seeing All-loving beating heart to reflect the stories in the flames we breathe. We would no sooner take these scales out of the earth and stone than we would tear the scales off our backs. What good are meditation scales if you rip them out of a cave and take them away? But many humans fought us and stole from us. Finally we stopped coming into their mammoth cave to befriend them.

When Theravin and I had gone farther away from the Forest of Belledur than any gordaran had gone in many instants, we found both forests and cities in ruins. The flaming stories that remained showed us images of monsters with scales harder and thicker than what we gordarans wear. They had huge claws that tore at our dwellings and ripped our ancestors to pieces until the few ancestors who survived fled deep into the caves where we now live. We should have taken fair warning, Theravin and I, but because we were young and foolish, Theravin will never grow old and wise in this life as I hope to do.

Although these flaming stories weighed heavily on our hearts, the air we breathed in the ruined city was so different and new for us, that we wanted to explore further. So, we passed through the ruined city until the air filled our nostrils at the entrance of another cave. This air made us mad with desire to breathe more of it regardless of the dangers ahead of us.

We listened at this new entrance first—we had that much sense—but we heard nothing. Then we stepped into the next cave. In the smallest of instants, we were overwhelmed by the feeling of the mammoth size of this cave. No wonder Leonard does not think it is a cave. There was something odd about the air, however. As I said, the air felt alive in a way we were not sued to, but there was also something dead in the same air. How could that be? Theravin and I looked at each other with our questions. We could not answer them, and so we decided we would explore further.

What we saw were more ruins, like the ruins of the gordaran city we had just passed through. It was enough to make us wonder if the gordarans destroyed their own cities as much as they destroyed ours. Rising up above the ruins was a dark monster very much like the monster we saw in a flaming story about the human’s attack on our ruined city. The monster had a neck many gordaran tails longer than any creature we had yet seen. At the end of the neck was a head with jaws much wider than the jaws of any gordaran. When the monster did not move to attack us, not even after we had stared at it for many instants, Theravin touched it with his claw. I jumped back, ready to fight the monster, but it did not attack. Feeling bolder than I should have, I touched the monster myself. I could feel that it was made of a very hard scale, but it was not like any of the scales that the All-seeing All-loving Heart placed inside the caves where we live. I hunched down in fighting position, but the head with the wide, sharp jaws did not come down to tear at my scales, neither did the monster show any other signs of life.

We knew we should have retreated to our own cave in the city of Neshbin, but we were emboldened more than we should have been by the monster’s lack of life. We smelled more deadness in the air right around the monster than we did further away from it. That should have warned us, but we were too foolish to heed the warning. When we looked up at the roof of the mammoth cave, we were amazed at the dim flames that floated so far above us. Could it be that gordarans were flying up there and they would come and meet Theravin and me? We flapped our wings and rose up toward the roof to meet the gordarans at the roof, but no matter how high we flew, we came no closer to them. Theravin and I could not imagine how any gordarans could have flown so far up when we became so short of breath before getting anywhere near them. Perhaps the All-seeing All-loving Heart that fills our own hearts placed them there direct with his sustaining Claws. We marveled together, Theravin and I, on how close, yet so far the gordarans on the roof were from us.

As we flew back down to the floor of this mammoth cave, and saw many tall, dark trees, only they seemed to be filled with little caves. In the little caves, a few non-flickering flames shone. We also saw many square stones with small caves in them that were covered with strange non-flickering flames that confused Theravin and me. Some of these non-flickering flames took shapes that should have been flaming memories, but weren’t. We could sense that the images did not come from gordaran hearts. Even more strange were little stones that moved about in the passageways between the tall trees and the square stones with tiny non-flickering flames shining in front and back of them. Theravin and I did not understand how these stones could move about or why they should.

We swooped down to take a closer look at the picture in the non-flickering flame on a non -moving stone. It should have flamed with stories, but it didn’t. How could any living creature make flames that preserve no memory worth preserving? Before we could think further, something stepped out of the cave in the stone. The flaming stories Theravin and I had watched before coming out into this mammoth cave told us that it was a human who had come out of the cave. This human was not wearing a coat of false scales like those in the flaming stories, neither did he have a long pointed object as did our human attackers of instants past. He was covered with something soft, like bat skins. His face was red and his nose was even reder. We were surprised at the mandarach’s size—the flaming stories were wrong about that —for this human was only as tall as a Gordaran, and not a tooth taller.

Cautiously, we flew closer down to see if we could make the mandarach’s acquaintance. We should have known better. Had not the flaming stories in our caves of memory warned us? A strange cry escaped the mouth of this human followed by a stream of flameless words that made no sense. There was something strange in the eyes of this human that I had not seen preserved in any flaming stories. We began to feel the inside beatings of this mandarach’s heart, and they felt like a caveshake. Were all humans as distant from their hearts as this one? Theravin and I tried to speak to the human with our flames, but before we could form even one picture, the human’s words reached a higher pitch yet and his heart became a full-blown cave-quake. They all yelled and screamed at us. Theravin tried to speak to them and tell them we did not come to harm them, but his flames had only begun to form a picture of a dragon and a human touching claw to claw when the flame flared up beyond his control and started to flicker all over the cave. More humans ran out, yelling and screaming. Then loud high wailing sounds pierced our tender ears and two long, red. moving stones raced through the passageway between the trees and the stones. The red moving stones stopped close to the flaming cave, and many humans came out of the red moving stone. We were surprised to learn that this stone was also a cave, although a moving cave. We could not understand this, as we had never thought of caves as places to move about in, but only as places to live in. We wanted to have nothing to do with all this confusion, so we flew off in search of a more peaceful place in this cave.

Theravin and I flew some distance in the mammoth cave to a place where there were no tall trees, but only smaller stones the size of the one that caught fire. Along the passageways between the stones were small bits of dead flame that didn’t even flicker. Most of the stones were dark and there were only a few moving stones in the passageways. We began to sense the presence of living beings inside these stones, so we assumed they were caves. We could sense the stories of dreams in their hearts. This told us that humans have the sense to dream. At last we grew tired from flying over so many passageways and small stones, so we landed in a tree outside a group of small caves. We were surprised at how weak this tree was. It started to crack and then give way. We had to fly off and try again. The second time, we landed on the branches of a tree, two branches were strong enough to support the weight of one each of us. This tree had little stones on it that were so delicate that they were hardly stones at all. The air moved about us gently, and the delicate stones sang as they moved. Leonard has told me that this is the way trees are supposed to be, but I still think trees are supposed to be made of stone that is strong enough to hold several dragons without breaking.

We rested in the branches of the pillars, Theravin and I. The instants were filled with the human dreams floating up from their caves. We sat there together for the longest time, sharing our joy, but also sharing our fears. When gordarans love each other, their feelings become one and both know what is inside the other. Our greatest fear was that we still did not know what had caused the ruins we saw when first we entered this mammoth cave. Our second fear was that we did not understand the human who had come out of the cave that our flames burned, or why the cave he came out of burned so quickly. Were the stones in this mammoth cave as weak as the trees?

As we sat together, Theravin and I, the dream of one human in particular enveloped us. We felt the dream coming from an upper level of the cave before us. Then we saw a small opening appear on the upper level, and the face of a human hatchling, one who does not hatch eggs, looked out. He did not look happy and he did not feel happy. We could tell that the human hatchling was afraid of something and he was angry about something. We sensed that he was watching through the opening of his cave for someone he feared, but someone he also loved.

Then the human hatchling saw us. His jaw opened wide and his face disappeared. Theravin and I thought we had lost him, but then his face appeared again, and then it disappeared yet again. His face appeared and disappeared many times. We could not understand this hatchling. He seemed to like seeing us, but he seemed to be afraid and he seemed not to believe he was seeing us. His heart was very confusing. We wanted to form some flame images to tell him we would make friends with him, but we were afraid of what would happen to his stone cave after happened at the other cave. So the three of us marveled in each other’s presence for many instants.

The peace of our instants was interrupted by the sound of a moving stone that stopped in front of the cave where the human hatchling lived. An older human stepped out of the little cave. He walked crookedly like the first one we saw. Then Theravin and I saw that it was the very same human we had seen outside the first cave, red nose and all. The human hatchling was looking at him from the opening. We could sense that he was afraid of the human who had stumbled out of the moving cave and was walking crookedly up to the cave. We felt cave quakes both in the staggering human with the red nose and the human hatchling who was watching him. Theravin and I could take their cave-quakes no longer and we flew away. We wanted very much to return to our own cave and tell the others in our tribe what we had seen.

As Theravin and I winged our way back to the entrance to our cave, a line of light began to creep into the mammoth cave from a distant opening. To our dismay, the light grew stronger and soon our eyes began to ache. Then, almost without warning, a huge flame drove the light away and blinded us. How could the All-Seeing All-Loving Heart let such a thing happen? We felt our way to the entrance of our cave as best we could. It helped that our eyes adjusted to our blindness so that we could see a little, but poorly, where we were going. Many instants later, found ourselves among the broken stones where we had entered this mammoth cave. The lifeless monster we touched with our claws some instances before still rose high above us in the same spot where we had seen it before. We moved through the broken stones as best we could to the entrance of our cave. We must have been as unbalanced on our legs as the human we saw outside the hatchling’s cave.

To our dismay and fear, theravin and I heard the sound of human voices and felt their presence. Worse, we recognized one voice and the heart behind it as the same human Theravin and I saw in two previous instances earlier, the human filled with cave quakes who caused cave quakes in the heart of the hatchling. There was worse to come. Suddenly the roar of a thousand monsters tore our ears apart. Before we could stop ourselves, Theravin and I both cried out and spewed out fire. Our fire made everything worse. All around us, the rough cries of the humans filled our ears. Worse yet, the lifeless monster suddenly came to life and moved straight in our direction. When the monster opened wide its wide, sharp jaws, I leaped up to protect my mate, but Theravin—may his name never be forgotten in the cave of memory—leaped sooner and higher than I. Blinded as I was, I did not see clearly what happen, but I felt the monster clutch Theravin with its giant claw, lift him up in the air, and then crush him. I knew when he was dead, for at that instant his flame in my heart went out. Suddenly, the roaring stopped. Helpless and heartbroken, I could only hide in the ruins of this human city. I would wish to this present instant to have died in Theravin’s place if only I didn’t know the pain that would have been his if I had been the first to attack the monster. I loved him, and I love him still too much to wish him that fate.

I heard again the gruff human voices and absorbed the heart behind the words through my scales. Their hearts were painful to me, but I needed to know what they were saying as best I could, even if I could not understand the words themselves. With my perfect memory, I can give you the words for Leonard to inscribe them in his way. Leonard tells me that his fellow humans will understand what I do not understood.

“It’s okay, St. George,” said one of the Humans. “It was real this time. You weren’t drinking.”

“I need a few drinks already and it isn’t even seven o’clock in the morning yet. Did you see that thing try to tear off the top of the cab?”

“Yea, you would have been a dead duck if it had.”

“What do you do with a dragon carcass?”

“Mount it for the living room wall?”

“Who would believe it?”

“Better not let the reporters find out or we’ll be famous and never get a minute’s peace the rest of our lives.”

I did not understand what they said they were going to do with the body of my dear Theravin, but I understood enough of their hearts behind the words to know they had no respect for his scales. At that instant, I knew I would have to be even braver than my dear lost Theravin to reclaim his scales so as to bring them to their proper resting place. I had no idea of what “reporters” were, but the thought gave me a chill. I could only imagine thin humans running around with small noses sharp as teeth.

I spent many miserably long instants hidden among the sharp rocks. Clouds of steam rose above my eyes. This is what happens when gordarans grieve. The roar of the monstrous moving cave roared several times. That caused much pain to my ears. I felt the monster move about in the ruins. The ground shook when its gaping jaws sank into the ruins of a cave and devoured what was left of it. Then, many instants later, the tall, ruined cave came crashing to the ground.

Finally, long after I had given up all hope that the noise would come to an end, it stopped. The humans talked among themselves and then, finally, they left the ruins and the monster, leaving it motionless with its head and jaws high up as it was when Theravin and I first came into this mammoth cave. Finally the instant had arrived when I could recover Theravin’s scales and bring them back home. But no, the human who was filled with cave-quakes would not have it so. He had wickedly stayed behind when the other humans had left. I could distinctly hear the sound of Theravin’s scales being dragged along the broken rocks. I roared and let out a burst of fire. Blindly, I ran after him, but I crashed into a barrier. I breathed more fire. The barrier, just a weak mesh of metal, disintegrated. The humans cried out almost as loudly as the monster that had killed Theravin. I heard a few loud, sharp sounds and felt a burning sting somewhere near my tail. The wound stunned me just long enough for the human to get away with Theravin’s scales. The disrespect, the sacrilege, in this human’s heart spurred me on to fly up in the air after the human even though the blinding flame still half-blinded me. So closely attuned was I to the dead heart of Theravin, that I knew within me how far or how close I was to dead scales. That made it easy to follow this human and Theravin’s scales even in my blinded state. Then, as I flew after Theravin’s scales, the mammoth flame in the mammoth cave began to fade, and I could make out the shapes below me much more clearly. The more the cave lit up, the more false flames I saw in the tree-like caves and the smaller stone caves. I had the feeling that the humans, for some reason, could not see me in the light as well as they could when the cave was dark. I thought perhaps human eyes have it all backwards and they see better in the dark than they do in the light. Leonard tells me that I am the one who has it backwards and I see in the dark and can’t see in the light. That goes to show how hard it is for different creatures to understand each other. But at least Leonard and I don’t hate each other over this difference.

I followed the beating of Theravin’s dead heart and the human’s quaking heart to the very same cave that Theravin and I had come to when we were both alive to fly together for the last time. As I flew near to the cave, I also felt the presence of the fearful human hatchling Theravin and I had connected with when we sat together in the weak trees. I decided that my best hope was to seek the help of this young human hatchling. I felt his presence near the opening on the upper level of the cave where I had seen his face before, so I flew to the opening. A loud crash attacked my ears and sharp points pierced my scales as I plunged through the opening. The next instant, I heard a high-pitched scream, like the wail of the long, red, moving caves I heard when that cave caught fire. A non-flaming flame blinded my eyes. The hatchling’s heart blew up inside of me. I felt like striking out with my claws, but I stopped myself. I could tell that the human hatchling who blinded me did not mean to hurt me.

“It really is you!” said the human hatchling. “You came back!”

I could not say anything because I was still wriggling my way through the opening with the sharp points jabbing me all over my scales. It had never occurred to me that these humans would close up their entrances with walls you can’t even see. I still do not understand it, not even when Leonard explains it to me.

“Quick!” cried the hatchling. “You’ve got to hide! Here! In the closet!”

The thoughts “quick,” “hide,” and “closet” made no sense to me. “Quick” seemed to mean forgetting about eternity for the sake of doing something in a short instant. “Hide” and “closet” seemed to mean covering what should be seen and felt. I did not know why ever these thoughts should ever be, but I heard frantic sounds and felt hearts exploding from elsewhere in the cave. The human hatchling opened a tiny cave, pushed me in and closed that entrance against my nostrils. I could feel that the human hatchling did not mean to hurt me, but in this tiny, cramped cave I was practically smothered by soft objects I knew nothing about. A short instant later, I felt the presence of another human and heard her voice that sounded like an eruption of fire deep below a cave. I could feel the trembling in the hatchling’s heart, and I sensed that the other human was the hatchling’s hatcher, but I also thought at that instant that it was impossible for a hatcher to speak in her own hatchlings with a heart as was this hatcher’s. Gordaran hatchers never do that. I began to understand that the hatchling was right; that I needed to “hide” in this horrible tiny cave.

“Some hoodlum threw a rock at the window,” said the hatchling. “See, here’s the rock.”

I did not know what a “hoodlum” was, but I knew it could not be good. I felt insulted until I realized the thought did not apply to me. The human hatchling was saying words that did not flame with the truth. Another impossible thing! That never happens among gordarans. But I felt something loving in the hatchling’s heart. He was protecting me. The truth would have harmed me. He needed the words that did not flame with truth to protect me from something untrue in his hatcher’s heart. That, too, would never have happened among my kind.

While I waited for the false speaking to come an end, I felt another cave quake that I recognized. The very human who had killed Theravin and then stolen Theravin’s scales entered the hatchling’s cave and roared at the top of his lungs with his heart quaking in all directions. The hatchling’s hatcher screamed back at the human who I then realized must be her mate with heart, too, quaking in all directions. The heart of their hatchling shook so badly that I thought maybe I should break out of this horrible tiny cave and protect my friend, but something in my heart told me to wait. As is true in most instances, my inner heart was right.

“I know you want to punish Leonard, but if you do it now, you’ll be late for your meeting,” said the hatchling’s hatcher to her mate.

“You may lucky this time,” said the human who killed Theravin, “but just you wait till I get back. I’ll make you pay for that window with both your allowance and your little backside.”

I couldn’t believe what my heart thought it was understanding from these creatures who I thought were supposed to be thinking creatures. I heard more crazy words such as: “Don’t get drunk this time.” “Remember: only two beers!” “I promise.” But I knew the human’s heart had nothing to do with those thoughts. Finally the hatcher and her mate left the cave and the hatchling opened up the horrible tiny cave.

“All clear,” the hatchling spoke in a soft tone, “but we have to be as quiet as possible.”

I couldn’t get out soon enough. At last I could breathe properly! I inspected this strange creature, and he inspected me. I began to understand that my scales and long tail were as strange to him as his slimy scaleless body, the vegetation growing on the top of his head, and the soft false scales hanging over his body were to me.

“You really are a dragon, aren’t you?” the human hatchling asked me.

My heart flopped against the way he expressed the thought, but I sensed he meant well. I let the thought: Gordaran float into his head.

“You don’t call yourselves what we call you?” he asked, seeming to be puzzled.

I let my thought float into his head a second time and he nodded uncertainly.

“I think I get it,” said the hatchling. “You know, I should be mad at you. You broke my window and I got blamed by my parents for it. They blame me for everything, You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I did not understand the thought “ashamed,” but I knew it was not good. It made me afraid that this human hatchling was not going to be my friend after all. But I still had to try to be his friend. Nobody else in this mammoth cave seemed likely to befriend me and help me find Theravin’s scales. I opened my mouth and, very carefully, let out a small flame. The hatchling drew back in fear. Were all humans afraid of gordaran fire? It seemed that fire did things in this mammoth cave that it never did in my own. So, I made the flame smaller, making sure it didn’t touch anything inside the hatchling’s cave. Then I breathed a picture of myself and human hatchling touching each other claw to claw in the flame. The hatchling’s heart grew more quiet. He seemed to understand me.

“Do you really want to be friends with me?” he asked.

His heart felt jumpy. That made me wonder if anybody had made friends with him before. Gordarans always make friends with other gordarans who are willing to be friends with them. I knew that this human hatchling wanted to have a friend. How could it be that no other humans would be friends with him. I made the signal for yes. The hatchling did not seem to understand, so I gently poured my soothing, heartbroken feelings into his heart, then repeated the sign. This time, he understood. He was catching on fast.

“Gosh! A friend! I’ve always wanted a friend!” the hatchling exclaimed, his voice still very soft. “Getting a dra—I mean a gordan—for a friend is awesome.”

I gently put the name of my kind into the hatchling’s mind one again.

“Ah! Not a gordan, but a gordaran.”

I moved my head to say Yes.

“My name is Leonard,” said the hatchling. “What’s yours?”

I thought that a strange name, but I was not about to express that thought. Surely, he was going think the same of my name when I planted it into his heart. As I thought, my name was strange to him, but he was too kind to say what his heart was telling me.

“Would you like something to eat?” Leonard asked me.

The truth was, I was starving, but until that instant, other concerns had kept me from thinking about that. I communicated to him the thought that I was, indeed, very hungry. Leonard understood. Already, he knew how to listen to what I told him from my heart to his. Perhaps he will make a good gordaran yet.

“I’ll go get something for you,” said Leonard. “Just wait here and I’ll be right back. I’m sure I’m not supposed to feed you, but I know how to be sneaky when I have to be.”

Leonard left me alone for a few instants with my gloomy thoughts. I did not understand the thought behind the word “sneaky.” It seemed to mean doing something that other thinking creatures did not know about. As I waited, something terrible happened. The presence of Theravin’s scales that I had felt all this time suddenly left the cave. Couldn’t the All-seeing All-Loving Heart do better by me than this? True to his word, Leonard returned, carrying a thin circular stone in one claw with the strangest things on it. In the other claw, Leonard held what looked like a tiny lake filled with water. Leonard seemed to understand I was puzzled with what he brought me.

“I’m sorry if it’s not dragon food—I mean gordaran food,” he told me, “but it’s the best I can do. This is chicken, these are potato chips, these are nuts, and here are some cookies. And I brought a bowl of water.”

I was hungry enough to devour everything, but the only thing I really liked was what he called “chicken.” I wondered if this poor human hatchling would have the same reaction if I served him some fresh bats.

“Uh—can you tell me about yourself?” Leonard asked me when I had finished my meal.

I was so overwhelmed in my heart that he wanted to know about me that I told him my sad story. I was careful with my flames to keep from hurting his frail cave as I breathed my story. When I came to the death of Theravin, steam poured from my eyes and I could hardly see. I felt something wrap itself around me. It was Leonard’s front claws! His heart was beating inside of mine! This must be the way humans show affection. I was not comforted, but I felt better, and the steam stopped flowing. When I could see Leonard’s face again, I saw little trickles of water on his cheeks. They felt the same way as the steam from my own eyes felt, and he seemed to understand that.

“Oh Pendara,” said Leonard, “that was my father who killed him.”

His hatcher’s mate! How could such things happen? Leonard seemed not to know either. Obviously he felt very bad about that, worse than I thought a living being could feel about anything. The only thing I could think of doing was to do something practical. Get Theravin’s scales back. So I told him I had felt Theravin’s presence in this cave, but it had gone away since I came.

“I’ll bet he took it to the Lodge!” exclaimed Leonard. “We’ll get it back! Let’s go”

There was nothing I wanted to do more than get Theravin’s skin back, and I was amazed that Leonard wanted to help me and help me that very instant. Leonard quickly put some soft false scales on top of the soft false scales he already had covering his body. When he sensed my questioning him, he told me he had to wear the soft false scales because it was cold outside. Human bodies seem to be as delicate and frail as the trees in their mammoth cave! Then Leonard picked up all sorts of useless things and put them somewhere inside his soft false scales. It was silly, and I was impatient, but I had to wait. At last, Leonard was ready. He pointed to the opening I had broken through and I squeezed my way out and flew off.

“Pendara!” Leonard cried.

I turned around in the air and saw Leonard dangling from the broken opening of his cave.

“I—I need to ride you,” said Leonard.

Much as I liked this human hatchling, I did not like the thought of carrying his weight on my back, but I could see that not only did he have no scales, he had no wings either, and there would be no other way for him to travel with me. So I returned to the broken opening of Leonard’s cave, let him sit on my back, and then we flew away.

Leonard helped me by giving me directions to the cave where Theravin’s skin was being taken. When he pointed to the cave where his hatcher’s mate had gone, I saw a false flame lit up with a false picture of an animal in front of the cave. I was suddenly overwhelmed with Theravin’s presence and so I knew that Leonard had guided me well. I landed and clawed at the cave, but this stone was too strong and I could do nothing with it.

Not that way,” said Leonard. “Just follow me.”

Leonard put his claw to the barrier and opened it with no effort at all. I saw an older human inside who showed anger at my friend for being there, but when he saw me, a cave quake erupted in his heart! I put out my claw to touch his in friendship, but he ran away, screaming. As I walked into this cave, darkness blinded my eyes, and I could see only shadows. I heard humans screaming and running like a herd of cornered bats. Feeling the presence of Theravin’s scales as I did, and angered at the sacrilege they were committing, I followed the beating of Theravin’s dead heart until I wrapped my claws around his scales that I had found stretched out on the cave wall. I ripped off the scales and groped for the way to the cave’s entrance. The shadows of humans swarmed to the other end of the cave. Their hearts were quaking with a feeling thought I had never felt before. “Shame,” the thought Leonard tried to teach me when I broke the invisible entrance to his cave, was part of it, but there was more. Because of this shame, they seemed to think I wanted to hurt them. Worse, with the fear in their hearts, they wanted to hurt me. I didn’t see any weapons yet, but I knew they wanted the sharp, pointed sticks that humans used in earlier instants to attack us.

“Leonard! What are you doing here?”

That was the voice of Leonard’s hatcher’s mate, the one who killed Theravin and stolen his scales. I could feel fear in Leonard’s heart, but no shame.

“You killed that dragon!” Leonard yelled.

I winced at that horrible word, but I knew Leonard’s heart was being strong and I was proud of him.

“I’ll beat every inch of skin off your back when I’m through with you!” the mate of Leonard’s hatcher yelled. Then he yelled out many more words that felt so horrible in my heart that I could not stand to listen to them or remember them. Leonard tells me that is a good thing.

I could hear and feel Leonard’s hatcher’s mate moving closer to Leonard in the dark. Other angry and frightened humans were closing in on my friend as well. Something terrible to Leonard if I did not protect him. I moved front of my friend and raised my claws. The human screamed, showing that without his large roaring monster that killed Theravin, he was not very brave. Leonard jumped on my back. He seemed to understand that I could not see very well, and he told me which way to turn to get out of this horrible cave.

“Stop them! Stop them!” the humans all cried.

They hit me with something. It hurt, but not enough to stop me. Then a human threatened me with something that had four points on it, but not sharp ones. I knocked it out of his claws with one blow. Leonard guided me to the opening and pushed it open for me. Something heavy hit me from behind. I lost my temper and let out a long breath of fire. With flames all over the place, the humans caused me no more trouble. With Leonard on my back, I flew up toward the roof of the mammoth cave. Already I was hearing that high-pitched wailing sound from red moving caves very much like the red moving caves I saw then Theravin and I burned that other cave.

“I want to go home,” I communicated to Leonard. “It’s somewhere near where your hatcher’s mate had that roaring monster.”

“That’s the demolition site,” Leonard replied. “We can’t go there now, they’ll be looking for us. We have to get away and come back later.”

That thought was hard to take, but I understood that I had no choice. So, I flew above the wailing sounds up among the tall trees where a few weak flames burned.

“Neat-O!” Leonard exclaimed.

So he, too, was impressed with the sight. I flew towards the tallest of these trees. To my disappointment, I found no beauty and no stories in the flames when I saw them close up. They were false flames with nothing in them, not even a flicker of real flame.

“Pendara?”

“Yes.”

“This is the Sears Tower Building. It’s the tallest building in the world.”

“But it has no stories,” I told him.

“It’s got a hundred and ten of them,” said Leonard.

“No, there’s not a one. I know a story when I see one.”

He stopped arguing with me, and I with him. The instant would come when we would understand each other better. We flew on. Suddenly, my heart jumped when I saw a gordaran with golden scales shining over the front of a cave. I flew down to meet it, with my claw outstretched to greet him. But the other gordaran did not move to greet me. Neither did he breathe a flame of greeting.

“Quick! Leonard cried. “Get away!”

There was that thought again, the thought that says there are no instants when there should be instants. But already I could hear humans yelling and screaming, so I knew that my hatchling friend was right and I had to fly away. No sooner did I fly higher in the cave than I heard that horrible squealing sound the humans make every time they do not like something that I do.

“Why did they have that false flame of a false gordaran?” I asked Leonard. “Is everything in this cave false?”

“”Not everything is false,” said Leonard. “Like I’m real, aren’t I? But there are a lot of artificial things around. Like that dra—I mean gordaran. That was a Chinese restaurant. It’s called the Golden Dra—I mean gordaran.”

“What is that thought?”

“Thought? Oh, you mean: What is a restaurant? A restaurant is where people go to eat.”

“Do they eat gordarans?”

“Of course not! Quick! Fly higher! They’ve got guns now!”

As Leonard spoke those thoughts, I heard loud, sharp noises and saw small flames explode from the floor of the mammoth cave. I did not ask Leonard what a “gun” was because I knew it would be too horrible to know about. It did not take long for me to fly out of reach of those flames. But up ahead, I saw some huge gordaran flames in the distance. This time I was sure I would meet someone of my kind in this cave, and so I flew in that direction.

“Get away from there!” Leonard cried out.

I did not understand what could be wrong with these tall and thin gordarans, and I was beginning to wonder if there was anything at all in this mammoth cave that I should not flee. As I flew closer to these fire-breathing gordarans, I felt a terrible burning in my throat and heard a sharp, rough sound coming from Leonard, a sound that told me that Leonard’s throat was burning even worse than mine. By then I was close enough to the flames to see that they were not being breathed by gordarans at all. They were only horribly thin trees spewing out foul-smelling flames that had no gordaran stories. Worse than that, I realized that these were flames could only destroy stories for everybody. In a sudden rage, I wrapped my claws around one of the poison-fire-breathing trees, tore it apart, and poured my fire into its throat. Then I flew away.

“That’ll show them,” said Leonard, “but you’d better not get caught. If you do, the guys who own that factory will sue you for a million dollars.”

I didn’t understand those thoughts, but they gave me the idea that somebody would try to take away all of the meditation medals from our caves. I flew away from those poisonous fiery trees as fast as I could. Leonard told me which direction I should fly, and I followed his directions. By this instant, my heart was heavy, not only with grief over Theravin’s death but over the lack of stories anywhere in this mammoth cave.

“Is there anybody who tells stories in your cave?” I asked.

“Not very many,” Leonard answered. “Just a few writers I guess.”

“You mean most people don’t tell stories?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I guess they don’t have time.”

“Have—time? What is this you can have or not have?”

“Time is like having hours and minutes to do things in.”

“And some of you don’t get them?”

“Uh—I guess not.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I.”

Then a cave caught my attention and I flew down toward it. It wasn’t anywhere near as tall as the horrible tree that Leonard thought had over a hundred stories and I thought had none, but it was larger than the stone caves around it. It had a long pointed weapon on the top, but it did not feel like a weapon. The sound of music came from inside the cave and I wanted to hear it. This was the first music I’d heard in this cave, and I was beginning to wonder if the humans had as little music as they did stories. The music coming from this cave was not as good as gordaran music, but it was not bad. My heart felt a bit lighter, knowing that there are things the Humans can do that are worth while. The flames inside this cave burned in such a way as to make beautiful lights, almost as beautiful as the glistening metals lit by gordaran fire. Not only that, but the lights were filled with stories! I flew up for a closer look and saw a picture of a human with wings, but then I saw a gordaran at the human’s feet and my heart grew heavy again.

“Is this the kind of story you tell about my kind?” I asked Leonard.

“Oh, that’s St. Michael, the Archangel!” Leonard answered. “My priest told our class all about him. You see, it’s a story about a—a gordaran. St, Michael killed it because it was a bad gordaran who was fighting against God. But St. Michael wouldn’t fight you because you’re a good —a good gordaran.”

“Thank you. I hope more of your kind come to think so.”

“I do too.”

“This cave feels different from the other caves in your mammoth cave,” I said.

“That’s because this is a church. We worship God in churches.”

“Oh, you mean the All-seeing All-loving Heart who holds all caves in His loving claws?” I asked.

“Something like that,” said Leonard. “My priest says God is Love, but he isn’t always nice to us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Leonard’s heart felt sad and puzzled about what his words. I hovered about this cave, listening to the music.

“Why are you staying here?” Leonard asked me.

“Because I wish to listen to this music.”

“I didn’t know dra—I mean gordarans liked music.”

“Why should we not like music?” I asked in reply. “Music belongs with stories.”

“Gosh! You’re smarter than most people I know!” said Leonard.

“Then we shall have to make your fellow humans smarter some day,” I said.

“Yes, we shall,” Leonard agreed.

When the music stopped, I flew off in the direction Leonard had set for me. After several instants, I saw fewer passageways and fewer caves. Leonard directed me to a place where I could finally land, a place where there were no stone caves made by the humans. There were many trees like the one Theravin and I sat in the night Leonard first discovered us.

“I took a cub scout trip here,” said Leonard. “It should be pretty safe, at least for a little while.”

Leonard reached into the soft false scales he was wearing and took out something small with his claw. Suddenly I heard the sound of human voices.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a newscast. I want to know what they’re saying about you.”

The thought and the voices oppressed me with the feeling of those terrible things called “Reporters.”

“They are looking for me,” said Leonard, “but they won’t admit you are who you really are. They’re saying some lion escaped from the Brookfield Zoo.”

“Who’s saying those thoughts that do not flame with the truth?” I asked.

“The guys on the newscast.”

Suddenly, the invisible human stopped talking and, instead, I heard music. It was not as good as the music I heard at that cave with the pictures filled with stories, but it was better than what Leonard called the “newscast.” I started to sing the tune, and then I started to improve it. The music suddenly stopped, and I stopped my song.

“Go on,” said Leonard. “It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?”

“Yea. You could make a hit record with that.”

I didn’t like that thought, but I knew Leonard meant to utter a good thought about my singing. I sang some more and then Leonard started to sing, too. His singing was so beautiful that I stopped singing myself to listen to him. Sadly, that made Leonard stop singing.

“Why did you stop?” Leonard asked me.

“Because I wanted to listen to your music. Your singing is almost a good as that of a gordaran.”

“It is?” Nobody ever said I could sing good.”

“I do not understand the humans in your world,” I said. “Every gordaran knows a good singer when she hears one and we always tell singers when they are good.”

“Nobody even asked me sing before,” said Leonard.

“Well, I’m asking you to sing right now.”

So Leonard sang a song for me, a song filled with many longing thoughts that made me think about how much I missed Theravin. When Leonard finished his song, we sat together in silence for an Eternity of instants. I could feel Theravin’s dead heart beating with my heart and the heart of this human hatchling. If only I could find the way back to my city where I could lay Theravin’s scales in its resting place.

“You know, Pendara?” said Leonard after many instants had passed.

“I feel that you have something you want to tell me,” I said, “something that will make me happy.”

“Yes. I just remembered something else from my Boy Scouts outing. Just over the next hill is a cave. They told us it was called Dra- I mean Gordaran’s Cave. Maybe you can use it to go home.”

The thought made my heart much lighter. I followed my friend to the cave but, to my disappointment, I felt no gordaran presence. I was not about to give up so quickly, however. I entered the cave and opened my heart to my kind, and felt the flickering memories from many instants past!

“Yes,” I said, “I believe Theravin and I can journey home from here.”

I turned to Leonard. Steam rose from my eyes and little rivers flowed from his. My heart felt heavy because I would have to leave him and I could feel that his heart was just as heavy because he would have to leave me.

“Pendara, can I come with you?” Leonard asked me.

“But why? You have your own cave.”

“Uh—sort of. But you’re my only friend. Please let me come. You see—uh—my Dad isn’t nice to me. He even hits me when he’s drunk. And Mom just yells and yells at everybody. And nobody likes me at school because of my Dad.”

I could understand little of what Leonard was saying. It was all so impossible.

“But you are talking about the ones who hatched you, aren’t you?” I asked him.

“I wasn’t hatched, I was born,” said Leonard.

“That’s how you are born,” I said.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Never mind. How can your hatchers not be kind to you?”

“I don’t know.”

I thought about these horrible words for many instants. It felt wrong to take Leonard with me into my cave, but I made the decision to do it anyway. I did it because I knew I could talk him into taking me back to his mammoth cave to explore it when we were both ready for it.

My own hatchers and all other members of my tribe sang out their joy with the loveliest of songs when I returned to them. Then we all sang of our sorrow over Theravin’s death. I breathed the story of my meeting with Leonard and showed, in my flames, that Leonard was a good human hatchling who would not hurt us. I showed them that he had been hurt by his fellow humans and that he would need gordaran stories and gordaran songs to make him feel better. Then we sang a welcome song to Leonard that made his face look different and more peaceful than I had seen it in all my past instants with him.

Many members of my tribe helped me carry the scales covering Theravin’s dead heart to the resting place that is cradled in the everlasting Claws of the All-Seeing All-Loving Heart who put us here. We sang the songs of loss and mourning and Hope. Steam covered my eyes for many instants, but my heart felt lighter when the singing was over.

Leonard manages to live surprisingly well with my kind. We have had some adjusting to do. He thinks the cave is dark and he can only see when we breathe flames to light the way for him. There is little in our caves that Leonard will eat. He likes the fish we pull out of our lakes, but only if we ruin it by breathing fire on it. He refuses to even try our most delicious bats. Most important of all, Leonard has been learning our stories and he has told us what human stories he knows. This has greatly helped us to understand humans, and it is helping Leonard to understand what it means to be a human.

Perhaps the day will come when we can learn to be friends with the humans. We will have to learn from our mistakes. We will have to be careful. Perhaps we can also teach humans to be friends with each other, and especially to be kind to those they hatch.