The matchstick seemed to slam against his fingers as it thickened abruptly, and Matt found himself holding a six-foot candle, two inches thick, with a foot-long flame like a spearhead on top. He'd overdone things a bit, but that was the hazard of improvisation.
The dragon's eyes were fixed on the point of light. "Most interesting," he murmured.
Matt stared back at him, seeing a thirty-foot Chinese-style dragon, with short, clawed legs, a slender, serpentine body, and a saw-toothed crest running along his backbone. There was an added European element, though - huge batwings were folded along his body. But the leathery skin hung from them in rags, with yard-long rents from edge to bone. The edges of the tears were heavy with scar tissue.
Stegoman turned his huge head toward Matt. Matt stood very still, aware that he was on trial.
Slowly, the dragon nodded. "Thou hast not the look of an evil man-though it is known that a fair face may hide a lying heart."
"Oh, I'm a lousy liar! Every time I try, I can't even fool myself!"
"That is somewhat necessary to effective lying, aye." The dragon nodded. "Still, mortals are not so forthright as dragons. If we dislike someone, or are angered by his conduct, we are quite quick and open in saying so."
"Mm." Matt pursed his lips. "I expect that leads to a lot of fights."
"Not so many, no. We each know our fellows are quick to anger; and we know their power as we know our own. There can never truly be a winner when two dragons fight; he who's left alive will be so sorely wounded that he'll need months to heal. Thus we respect even those we do not like."
"I see." Matt chewed at his lower lip. "There are ways of telling someone what you think of him without making it really an insult."
"Quite right." Stegoman looked faintly surprised. "Few mortals are so quick to see it."
Neither did Matt, really; but he'd had a smattering of anthropology in his undergraduate days and could recognize a highly individualistic society when he heard about one. The pride that underlay Stegoman's words, the outspokenness, coupled with relatively little fighting, meant a very stringent set of social conventions; without them, Stegoman's people would be at each other's throats constantly. They might be ornery, but these dragons must be painfully polite to one another.
Matt cleared his throat. "But doesn't that make it difficult to get any kind of united action going? I mean, discipline..."
"The discipline is within each dragon," Stegoman said tartly. "When we organize for battle, each dragon's honor is respected; he whom we choose to lead us knows we've chosen to follow his commands, so when he gives them, he's careful to avoid insult. We do as he directs, for we've chosen him for wisdom."
Their commanders must be diplomats as much as generals. Nice society to belong to-if you didn't mind the constant risk of getting killed in a duel. "One dragon to a hill, eh?"
"Mountain," Stegoman snapped. "Our homeland is the eastern mountains - the range that divides this land of Merovence from the sink of sorcery called Allustria. Ever and anon, Allustria wars on Merovence or, less often, Merovence attacks Allustria; and to pass through our mountains, both attack the dragons. We are born and bred to war; each dragon will defend his mountain with his life, but all of us together must defend our land."
"I take it that when Allustria and Merovence attack you, they both lose?"
Stegoman nodded; dragons could look smug! "Since Hardishane first taught us order, we never have been conquered."
"Wait a second - who was Hardishane?"
Stegoman stared, scandalized. "Whence comest thou, ignorant mortal, that thou knowest not of Hardishane?"
Matt sidestepped. "It's a long story. Let's just say I haven't studied history. Who was he?"
"Why, the Emperor, thou unlearned one! The first Emperor he who came, eight hundred years agone, to band together all these Christian lands against the force of evil! For that cause, he made alliance with us, and showed us the manner of fighting as an army - and thus, at last, we prevailed against the giants!"
Matt started to speak, then hesitated.
"Close thy mouth," the dragon growled, "and do not say, for I can see, thou knowest naught of giants."
Matt nodded weakly.
Stegoman sighed and curled his tail around his claws, settling down for a session. "The giants came nine hundred years agone, when great Reme fell. Reme, unlearned one, was the southern town that made an empire out of all the lands around the Middle Sea fifteen centuries agone, before the coming of the Christ."
So there was a Rome. But the name was Reme. Apparently, here, Remus rather than Romulus won the fight. Was that when this universe had split off from Matt's?
But still - the Christ; that Name was the same.
Why not? Athens was a going concern while Romulus and Remus were sucking wolf milk; Greek should be the same language in both universes, and Christ was a Greek word.
"So. Rome - uh, Reme - fell. But where did the giants come from?"
Stegoman shrugged impatiently. "Out of the earth, the rocks, or the mouth of Hell for all I know. They came; it is enough. They attacked us, and each dragon fought against them with fire, tooth, and claw. We died, till few of us were left. Great ugly brutes they were, tall as the highest pine but broad as any dwarf, covered with matted hair and filth. For an hundred years we fought to cleanse our mountains of them, sought to burn them out, and died.
"Then Hardishane came riding from the North, and with him came Moncaire, the mighty wizard. Moncaire waked up a hill into human form and gave it the name Colmain -- a giant with the power of right behind him. He killed an evil giant, and we hailed him for a hero. Then Hardishane brought armies to garrison what few free mountains we had left; and he told us how all dragons could fight in unison, by one single plan, with no one dragon's head lower than the leader's. And he taught our elders tricks of battle.
"Thus, when the giants came, massed in a foul horde, shaking mountains with their bellows, they met an army fifty times their number, with an Emperor and a wizard at its head and a giant, greater than the largest of them. Giant bodies walled our valleys. Then we hunted out the last behemoths left, burned them from their hidings, and drove them to Colmain. Thus we cleansed our mountains, and Hardishane passed through with all his army. Colmain strode out behind him, to aid him in the purging of Allustria. Thus they passed beyond our ken; but we never have forgot them."
Matt closed his eyes, gave his head a quick shake, and looked up at Stegoman. "An age of heroes..."
The dragon nodded. "We were born too late, thou and I, into a shrunken, latter world, with kingdoms in the place of empire, and barons where there once were giants."
"And from these heroes came your nation?"
The dragon nodded again. "Our nation and our law and lore; for only then did we begin to chant our history and our names, to hail our heroes and decry our weaklings, as a people."
He shuddered and looked away.
Matt's mental ears pricked up. Something painful, there. Now, if he had any sense, he'd leave it alone - but being himself, he had to pry. "So with your songs and sagas, you wrapped words around your customs and traditions and forged them into law."
"Aye." The dragon's gaze snapped back, eyes burning. "Our law, that says each dragon's pride is sacred, each dragon's life beyond the bounds of price - yet that both must stand within the shadow of the people."
"Ambiguous." Matt frowned. "Do you mean any one dragon has to be sacrificed if he endangers the society?"
Stegoman hunkered down, glowering. "You lay strange words against the thought - but, aye. A dragon's soul and person are inviolate - but so are every other dragon's. If he endangers another, then let them fight, or resolve it with sweet words, whiche'er they choose! But if a dragon, by his conduct or his mere existence, threatens three or more..."