Light as a Cloud

Chapter 23

Meroch traveled and traveled. Around him, the terrain grew rougher and barer. Where the first day he could get away with walking, sometimes leaping over cracks in the stone floor, on the second he surely had to climb. The Spring Mountains were steep, so much that it seemed surreal. He wished he'd brought a rope, but he didn't. The climbing was slow and exhausting. Sometimes the shadow of a dragon passed over, and indeed, these creatures were huge! Most were grey, almost the same shade as the mountains themselves. The surges of wind that their giant wings caused, once almost blew Meroch off the rocky wall he was climbing. He clenched his hands around the edges and hoped for the best. His feet weren't strong enough to resist the surges and waved like an oddly shaped flag, and slammed against the stone a few times, until the winds died down and Meroch could find his support back. His fingers as well as his legs were bleeding from it, and they were still bleeding when the evening fell.

Meroch was sitting on a plateau. From this height he could see the place he started from in the morning. He could even see the edge of the rocks, a green line on the horizon, just under the setting sun, but the path he'd strayed from was too thin to even perceive.

On his other side, the full moon was already rising, and many stars illuminated the sky. A cool breeze, a herald of winter, sent shivers down his spine. He wasn't dressed for the cold. If animals other than dragons dwelled these mountains... Meroch was longing for a coat of fur around his shoulders to shield him from the biting cold that was to come. He knew winters in northern Grisenland, and they were bad. If he'd only had something to burn, he could've used his elf magic to set it on fire, but there were no trees to be seen anywhere on the craggy mountain peaks.

The third day it rained, and it rained heavily. Meroch found it too dangerous to even bother climbing the slippery stone. Though out of boredom, and in an attempt to find shelter from the rain, he walked around the plateau he was on, searching for safe ways out. On the north side, there was an opening in the rock wall, just wide enough to allow Meroch to wriggle himself through. He didn't care how he'd get himself out again. He just crawled through the cave, further and further into the mountain.

In a cave on another side of that same mountain, an enormous dragon lied perfectly still, listening to the rain distantly clattering against the mountain walls. Even the rising and falling of his chest happened so slowly and gently, that it was barely noticable that the dragon was still alive and breathing. The songs of the weather had him in a deep, coma-like trance. The light of the torches on the walls reflected in gold on his silver scales, which made it hard to see where the treasures ended and the dragon began. Indeed, it could as well be a statue made out of treasure, if it wasn't for the dragon's eyes, with widened pupils, staring deathly to the west. There was something within those eyes, maybe a flutter in the eyelids or an occasional shiver in the iris, that alerted dwarfs who'd dwell by that the dragon was alive, and would wake up if you disturbed him. 

This is what Meroch encountered when he crawled out of the narrow cave. After his feet found a stable place to stand in the coins and jewelry, he looked up, and found himself looking at this dragon. This giant of a dragon. This mountain of a dragon. Meroch had never seen a creature this size before.

The dragon's eyelids fluttered when he heard Meroch moving through the metal. His pupils narrowed and started to dart. Suddenly, he moved his head around to Meroch and stared at him intensely. The intruder was found.