The Dead City by John Scalzi

Author:John Scalzi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2012-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

There are many legends about the night dragons. You know about three (well, four). Here are some more.

It is said that as fledglings, night dragons are sustained only by the tears of distraught unicorns.

It is said that if you call the name of a night dragon at the exact instant of a full moon, it will come to you. If you then whisper a name into its ear, the dragon will then fly to the exact location of that person and eat them.

It is said that if you bathe in the blood of a night dragon, you will be invincible at caber tossing.

It is said that earthquakes are what happen when two night dragons love each other very much.

It is said that the most hated natural enemy of the night dragon is the lemur, which is a very bad deal for the lemur.

It is said that salt made from the dried tears of a night dragon will take fifty years off your life, so putting night dragon tear salt in the food a 49-year-old is not advised, unless you do not like them.

It is said night dragons can speak to the moon, but don’t because all the moon wants to talk about is how much it likes basalt.

It is said that if a night dragon is caught in the sunlight, it will turn either into a porpoise or a tortoise, depending on whether it is over land or sea, until the sun goes down. Sometimes it turns into the wrong thing. It will then have a very uncomfortable day.

It is said that if you anger a night dragon, you may appease it with cheese. But you better have a lot of it.

It is said that the only way to truly kill a night dragon is to bore it to death.

It is said that the scales of a night dragon are impervious to cutting, chopping and grinding. It is also said that night dragon scale powder is the most amazing aphrodisiac known to man, but given the first part of this legend, good luck with the whole “making a powder out of a dragon scale” thing.

Finally, it is said that night dragons can live forever, but often choose not to, because when you come right down to it, the world isn’t nearly exciting enough to stick around on for that long. Theologians have argued, to great and sometimes bloody length, about whether this means that night dragons believe in an existence beyond this world, or whether it just means that eventually, even suicide is preferable to having to be on the same planet as humans.

None of these legends are true, although some of them are closer to true than others, specifically that most species eventually find humans interminable, and it’s unlikely night dragons would be an exception to the rule.

Here is a true thing about night dragons:

They don’t exist.

Never have. Because – as the apparently doomed Ruell cogently noted – they are biologically impossible. You might as well put wings on

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