The Makings of Dragons
Herb Kauderer
At first, dragons were rare monsters
conjured by wizards who spent long months
slowly simmering essences
with which to imbue their creations.
Emerald, ruby, copper, gold, diamond,
and more were used as dragon’s essence.
And, as wizards included
the good and the bad,
so too their dragons
became good or bad.
As their fame spread,
dragons sometimes appeared
without the artifice of wizards:
distilled from shared stories
and made tangible by collective belief – just as
angels and demons and hell came to exist.
Consciousness defines reality and always has.
The age of dragons
was then upon the world and so
they became diverse and powerful
across the many lands.
When enough dragons existed,
the creatures mingled, (and
on rare occasions procreated)
producing weird hybrids
of divided essences.
In time,
a warrior discovered that dragon blood
at times bestowed powers on mortals,
or came in a form
such as could be used for warfare –
acids and poisons and exploding gas.
Their ground bones aided the healing device of the physician.
Their scales, the stuff of magic armor.
And so, during the height of the time of dragons,
they were the hunted. And as the hunters
traversed the world,
songs of their adventures traveled with them –
recorded as countless epic tales and songs.
The dragon wars raged for centuries.
Dragons were created, and killed,
in terrifying numbers
until the wizards themselves became scarce –
hiding from kings and warlords
who sought to use them.
As the wizards dwindled,
the time of dragons could not be sustained.
Within decades,
or even years,
of the death of each dragon,
it decomposed to its essential materials
leaving no corpse
nor fossil confirmation of its passing.
And so it was that by the passing
of one human lifespan following the death
of the last dragon, only legends and
enduring beliefs remained,
without substantiation.
Only legends.
