The Saint of Dragons. Jason Hightman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ back like the plates of a miniature stegosaurus. His long fingers were tipped with white claws. His teeth were white. His amber-white eyes had protective, translucent white eyelids. Even when he closed his eyes, he saw whiteness.

      The White Dragon lived in a luxury building in New York City that overlooked Central Park. Everything in his very large apartment was white: the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the curtains. The furniture, including the chairs, the tables, the sofa, the bookcases (and the books in them), as well as the telephone, the television, all of the furnishings everywhere, all were shades of white. The kitchen and all of its tools were white. The bedroom and the bed and the nightstands were all white. So was the bathroom.

      Nothing was ever written down in the home of the White Dragon. The White Dragon liked blank white paper.

      Nothing was ever dirty. The White Dragon made sure anything dirty was thrown out unless it could be made clean and white.

      Nothing was ever eaten that was not white. The White Dragon ate white cream soup or white clam chowder, stone-white crackers, white bread, white vanilla ice cream, white mashed potatoes. White meat. His favourite: white goats, swallowed whole. If the dragon was eating a human being, he used his magic to grind it up until the person was a white powder that could be sprinkled easily over nice, white food.

      He took great pride in his appearance. He spent most of his time in a massive white bathtub filled with white bubbles. The one reason he enjoyed going out into the world was to return home and wash it all away with white soap.

      The white creature had grown rich from criminal activity, mostly from the art world. His human partners spent all day stealing money from people through art forgeries, and forcing other people to steal money from still more people. The White Dragon gave the orders, then all he had to do was sit back and receive reports of how much money he had made that day.

      The rest of his day was spent contemplating whiteness.

      All about the place were small white boxes with small white cloths inside that the creature could use to clean up tiny bits of dirt or dust that might somehow have fallen on to his pristine skin.

      He spent hours polishing his teeth. He even scrubbed his eyes with soap, no matter what the pain. He had read somewhere that harmful dust can collect in the corner of the eyes and go unnoticed. It did not go unnoticed in the home of the White Dragon.

      The creature stood seven feet tall and could hide easily under heavy clothing and a long trench coat. He walked on two feet. His head was fairly small, and though his neck was a bit longer than a human’s, it could retract.

      The dragon had a white tail, long, full and strong. He kept his tail curled up against his back so it could be hidden under a coat. His white wings could also be kept hidden, but he rarely flew. That required too much energy and dirt particles would fly into his eyes.

      When at home, naturally, the creature hid nothing. He stretched out his long tail and his baggy old body and lay around in his pricey little kingdom, listening to the radio tuned to no particular station. White noise, of course. The ultimate lounge lizard.

      The only matter that troubled the dragon was that he liked to sleep in flames. He would spew fire into the massive fireplace and sleep inside, with fire all around him. This was delightful to him. In the morning, however, there would be all that mess to clean up. Fire makes things black.

      To keep things clean, a small army of workers was employed at all times. They did not know for whom they worked. They only knew that the fireplace must be kept perfectly clean at all costs, every single day. Only white ash was allowed to remain.

      Even the creature’s fire was white. It was magic fire. The old serpent liked to make the fire grow like a white vine, like ivy, in long strings that would crawl on the wall and branch out in thin, glowing strands. He thought fire was lovely. He could make it come out of his mouth or his eyes or his hands or his fingers, but after that, it might do whatever it wanted. Dragonfire is an unpredictable thing. After a few seconds in the air, it can actually come to life. From time to time, the dragon would unleash a fire just to have someone to talk to. The living fire would laugh with him and speak of terrible things. It sometimes took the shape of a blobby man with no real face, and it would walk around the room, scorching everything. The dragon hated the messes it made.

      The creature had other ways of making messes. He had developed an interest in art. His new joy was painting pictures.

      They were pictures of the colour white.

      If his paint should ever drip off the canvas, it only added to the white in the room.

      The painting he was currently working on was a pride and joy. Like the others, it used various shades of white to create a subtle white abstract effect. Blobs of colours from white to off-white, to egg white, to cream, to vanilla, to ivory, to almost-a-colour, to tannish white, to greyish white, all fell together on a big canvas. A white canvas. It was wonderful. The creature was certain he was on the verge of something brilliant. Art is white. Anything else distracts from the art.

      The creature cheated at his art as he cheated at everything in life. No one else in the world would be much interested in a painting of shades of white. So as he worked, the White Dragon touched the art with magic. Anyone who looked at a White Dragon painting saw exactly what he wanted dimly reflected under the white paint, and everyone saw something different. The artwork was just enchanted enough to capture your heart, without a drop of extra enchantment left behind.

      Each one was worth a small fortune.

      The dragon smiled at its work. Captivating, even to him. The only thing more marvellous was the work of that delicate woman across town, at the modern art gallery.

      You see, the dragon had one other interest. A lovely lady, an art collector. To him, she was as beautiful as the art that surrounded her.

      The White Dragon had made himself somewhat well-known with his own paintings, and the woman had placed many of his art pieces in the gallery where she worked. She was a painter herself, so the two had much to talk about.

      The pity was that no one else saw the quality of her paintings. The woman had displayed them in her office discreetly, and the dragon passing through the gallery one day had taken note of them. Her paintings were scratchings of green colours laid out over odd symbols, runes that were brushed in with shades of gold. Most people thought her works were quite strange. Not the dragon. He loved them. He made a habit of calling her to tell her how much he loved them.

      The two had only spoken on the telephone. He had seen her only from afar.

      He decided it was time to introduce himself formally. But he was low on energy. He had used his magic quite a lot recently and needed to rest.

      The White Dragon had been to a town called Ebony Hollow, looking for a boy named Simon St George. An amazing discovery: the Dragonhunter had a son. The White Dragon’s dying brother had sent him word through one of his spies. An unusual act of cooperation, but they were brothers, after all. It’s a shame the spies weren’t up to the task of destroying the knight, but that was a pleasure the dragon wanted for himself anyway. Always hunting each other, they were. The game went round and round.

      The St George family was a curse to dragons. St Georges were faster, smarter and stronger than other humans. They could see through Serpentine magic.

      The true power of the child was not known. But it did not matter, thought the dragon; the boy would no doubt amount to nothing. His dragon spies remained on the job. They’d find him.

СКАЧАТЬ