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smiling, never laughing. He spoke little and then
always to purpose. He made no friends, took no lovers, for that would mean
becoming involved with humans. He was the only one of his kind in the world. He
walked the winding corridors carved out of rock that led deeper and deeper
underground and he was comfortable and at home. At times, the cavern tunnels
were so cramped and narrow that he was forced to crawl through them, at the
cost of cuts and scratches and scrapes on his fragile human flesh. More than
once rock slides blocked his path, forcing him to stop to clear them. He jumped
chasms, waded a dark river. All around him was silence, except for the
occasional drip of water or the fall of a pebble somewhere in the distance. He
liked silence, preferred silence.
    He
could not hear them, and he might have thought himself alone, but he could feel
their movement in the ground that shuddered sometimes beneath his feet. They
were here and they were waiting for him—the Parliament of Dragons.
    He
squeezed through a narrow tunnel that opened up into a vast cavern. Although he
had been here many times, he tended to forget, over the years, the
magnificence, the grandeur. Standing upright, he paused, as he prepared to
enter the Hall of Parliament, to catch his breath and to marvel.
    The
cavern was immense. He had been in human cities, teeming with thousands of
people, that could have been picked up whole and dropped into this cavern. The
ceiling was far, far above him, so far that it seemed like heaven’s dome,
without the stars. The dragons had constructed an entrance at the very top of
the mountain, hidden from sight by clouds and magic, and dim light filtered
down from above. A dragon was just arriving. He watched the massive body soar through
the entry-way far above him, watched the great beast slowly spiral round and
round in the dim, gray light; head peering downward to find a place to land. He
lowered his gaze, looked around him. He could see them now and hear them.
Eleven dragons of the twelve houses of dragons, the elders of each house: the
Parliament.
    The
twelfth dragon landed on the cavern floor and settled himself, bowing his head
to the others, shifting his bulk to make himself comfortable, pulling his wings
into his sides, adjusting his tail so that it wrapped around his legs. He made
his apologies for being late. The others murmured their acceptance.
    Dust,
disturbed by his fanning wings, clouded the air. Had the dragons been in the
sun, the light would have sparkled and danced on their bright scales. A
brilliant sight, one to dazzle the eye and the mind, for when a dragon moved,
the gleaming scales rippled, clashing golden as the sunlight on ocean waves. He
saw the wondrous image in his mind, not here in the cavern, for in the dim
light the scales of all the dragons were gray, the same gray as the stone walls
surrounding them. Only the slit eyes gleamed red.
    He
stood at the entrance to the Hall, waiting patiently. The twelve arranged
themselves in a circle, with the Minister at the compass point, north. The
dragons were recumbent, resting on all fours, their tails wrapped around their
hind legs, the tips touching the front talons planted firmly on the ground in
front of them. They held their heads upright. The eyes gazed at him, unblinking.
He heard their breathing, the rasping of their wings, the scrape of claws.
These were the only sounds that broke the silence, the only sounds that would
break it. Dragons communicate with thought alone, not with spoken words.
    As
such, the language of dragons is a language of images, textures, shapes, color,
and emotion, playing upon all the senses. A dragon hearing of a storm from
another dragon would be able to feel the cold rain, hear the clash of the
thunder, and see the wind-driven waves crashing upon the shore. The brush that
paints the images conveys the feelings of the dragon and the dragon receiving
the image knows if he is being warned of an approaching storm or merely